call them aldeana costumes?"
"Oh, don't you know? Aldeana simply means peasant, or as we would say, country costumes. I asked Miss Dolores. Mercedes will wear the peasant costume of this part of Asturias, you see."
"I understand. There come two of those funny squeaking cow-carts. What a noise they make. I am glad it is the haying season, for I think those carts piled up with hay and led by a tall man or a peasant woman carrying a long pole across the shoulders are such picturesque things."
"Everything is picturesque," agreed Mary Lee. "I love those dear little soft-nosed burros, only I wish the people treated them better. I saw a girl on one this morning. She was making it go very fast, and I wondered why it was going at such a gait till I saw she was sticking a long pin into it every few steps."
"They are cruel to the donkeys," acknowledged Nan, "but I think they are very good to the other animals. The poor burros get the worst of it, and seem to be creatures made only for ridicule and abuse. Oh, Mary Lee, I do believe that is a band of gipsies coming, real Spanish gipsies. Aren't they interesting? I suppose they are coming for the fiesta. Look at those two children with scarcely a rag on. Did you ever see such wild-looking, impish little things? And the man with the velveteen coat and red sash, do see his big sombrero. I hope we shall see them again." She turned from the window to greet Mercedes who came in to bid them come down to the patio to practice the jota.
Her pretty peasant dress was all ready for the morning, for it was quite the thing for others than the mere peasants to adopt the local dress on such occasions. She would wear a short red skirt with bands of black velvet around it, and smocked at the belt. Her brocade bodice trimmed with jet would partly cover her white chemisette. Around her neck she would wear a long chain with a handsome old reliquary attached to it. Very long filagree earrings would be fastened upon her ears, and upon her head she would wear a gay silk handkerchief tied in a peculiar way. A fancy apron of yellow silk completed the costume. Miss Dolores had consented to wear a manta de Manila or soft shawl wound gracefully around her, and in her hair a red clavel.
"You, too, must wear a clavel," said Mercedes, "for you are to dance the jota, and if you will, you can also wear mantas de Manila. You shall have Antonio for a partner and when not him, I will dance with you."
The little village where the fiesta was to take place was but a short distance away. The entire Cabrales family, which included Doña Teresa, her son Antonio, Mercedes and the two younger daughters, Maria Isabel and Consuelo, went with their guests, so theirs was quite a large party which arrived in front of the old church in time to hear the rocket-bombs, and to see the great ramas, or pyramids of bread, carried inside. Then all entered the ancient, low-arched edifice, where glimmering candles at the altar gave the only light. Upon the bare floor were many kneeling figures of women wearing black mantillas. The men occupied the gallery above the rear of the church, or stood at the back near the door.
"Isn't it solemn?" whispered Nan to her sister.
Just then with the chanting of the priests was mingled the song of a canary, then another chirped up, and a third joined in, so that all through the service the little songsters did their part.
"You will see the danza prima here," Miss Dolores had told them. "It is the most ancient and primitive of the Spanish religious dances. It can hardly be called a dance, in fact. And the ramas? They are huge pyramids on which are hung circular loaves of bread, and which are adorned with flowers and branches of green; that is why they are called ramas. They indicate the fruits of the harvest."
So when the moment came for the young men of the village to bear forth the ramas, the girls watched eagerly to see the body of maidens, in aldeana dress, taking a peculiar step backward, always backward, and beating their tambourines and drums while they sang a monotonous chant. The figure of the Virgin, in dazzling array, preceded the ramas, and as the procession issued into the open air again the rocket-bombs went up again. Women carrying tall lighted candles brought up the rear of the procession which moved around the church. The ramas were set up again outside while the Virgin was carried back to her shrine and then the real fiesta began.
"Almost all the fiestas have some special feature, some religious dance to distinguish them from one another," Miss Dolores told the girls. "At Llanes they have a very old dance called the danza peregrino, or dance of the pilgrims which is supposed to date back, no one knows how many centuries, to the days of the pilgrims, and the cockle-shells and staves are still conspicuous in the dress the children wear when they give the dance. At Ribadasella they have a procession of boats upon the water, which is quite pretty."
"I'd like to see that," said Nan.
"Perhaps we shall be able to. Now, we will wander about a while to see the people and the booths before the dancing begins."
"Why, it's just like a fair," remarked Mary Lee. And indeed, to see the stands where cakes, beer and wine were offered for sale, to see the women squatting on the ground in front of baskets of nuts or fruit, to see the merry-go-round and the merry crowd made one think that it might be anything but a religious occasion.
"The dancing has begun," cried Mercedes. "You must come." She urged the girls forward to where upon the grass two lines had formed, the men opposite the girls. A man with a violin and a woman with a drum were beginning the music of the jota, and presently Nan found herself opposite Don Antonio while Mary Lee had Mercedes for her vis-à-vis. Don Antonio was a tall, serious-looking lad of nineteen, but when with arms aloft, he snapped his fingers, and took graceful steps, he seemed quite a different person from the grave young man who had ventured but a few remarks to the American girls. Nan soon caught the spirit of the dance, while Mary Lee, under the teaching of Mercedes, was presently snapping her fingers and taking her steps with the best. It was energetic exercise and they were rather tired when the last notes of the jota ended.
"Now let us go and have some cider and cakes," proposed Mercedes.
"Cider? Do you have cider here?" asked Nan.
"Oh, yes," was the reply. "In Asturias we raise many apples, and cider is a favorite drink. I see Antonio has supplied us with cakes. We will go over there under the trees and have our feast and then we will walk down by the sea."
"I am so glad to see so many in peasant dress. Why don't the men wear it?" Mary Lee put the question.
"So few young men are here. Most of them have gone away and will come back Americanos when they have made money."
"Americanos?"
"Yes. They go to Buenos Ayres, to Mexico, to Venezuela, and when they come back they do not wear any more the aldeana dress, and they are always called Americanos."
"And what are we?" Nan put the question, a little puzzled to know how she and her sister would be distinguished. If they were not Americans what could they be?
"Oh, you are Inglesas," Mercedes told her.
"Because we speak English, I suppose." Nan was not quite sure that she liked this method of classification.
"Oh, yes, that is why, certainly," returned Mercedes. "See there is a man over there wearing the Asturian cap, the old man with a long peaked cap which hangs down one side."
"And so you don't call us Americanos," Mary Lee returned to the subject, after looking at the man with the peaked cap.
Mercedes smiled and shook her head.
"I always forget there is any America but the United States," said Mary Lee, "but of
