of Mexico, she saw nothing but ignorance, sensuality,
bigotry, and indolence, nothing calculated to shake her faith as a
Protestant, or cause her to forget her mother's first injunction; while
the foppishness, frivolity, insolence, ignorance, and pride, of the men,
by whom she was surrounded, most effectually protected her from the
remotest thought of disobeying the second. The men, on the other hand,
regarded her with the coolest indifference; accustomed to admire the
black eyes, and hair, and colorless complexions of the Spanish and
native, or Creole, women, varying from a sort of dirty cream color, to a
deep and beautiful copper, Isabella's rather lightish brown hair, blue
eyes, fair complexion, and cheeks rosy with health and cheerfulness, had
no charms for them; and, while her cousins had lovers, or danglers, by
the dozen, Isabella found herself, to her infinite satisfaction,
completely deserted and neglected, by all the starched and pompous fools
that visited her uncle, during a stay of some months in the city of
Mexico.

She had, on the arrival of the family at St. Blas, contrived to employ
her time in cultivating such female accomplishments as her mother had
instructed her in, and was, at the time we introduce her to the reader's
notice, in her twentieth year. In person, she was about the medium
height of women, or, perhaps, a little below it; and would be called, in
New England, rather a small woman. Her form was exceedingly
well-proportioned and beautiful, although, what may seem incredible, it
had never been cramped, crushed, and distorted, by tight lacing, of
which her mother had a very reasonable horror; and, in consequence, her
movements were free, graceful, and unconfined.

I know very well that the idea of a lady's form being beautiful, unless
moulded by corsets into the form of a ship's half-minute glass, will be
scouted as absurd and impossible; but to the ridicule that such a
proposition must necessarily excite, I can oppose my own observation,
leaving antiquity, with its faultless statues and sculptures, to shift
for itself. The Hindoo women, of whom I have seen hundreds at once
bathing in the Hoogly, of all ages, from childhood to decrepitude, have
extremely fine forms, when young, that is from twelve to twenty-two or
three, at which period they have all the marks of old age. As they bathe
with only a single thin cotton garment, which, when wet, sticks close to
their bodies, and developes their for