nts to balls
and fiestas, and maidens are permitted to mingle freely in society
from their baby-hood. At fourteen or fifteen they enter formally
into society and begin to receive attentions from men. In the upper
classes seventeen or eighteen is the usual time for marriage. By the
time a girl is twenty-two or twenty-three she is counted _passee_,
and, if unmarried, must retire into the background in favor of her
younger sisters.

The young girls are exceedingly attractive. They are slender,
and their heads sit beautifully above long swan-like necks. They
dress their hair in a rather tightly drawn pompadour, and ornament
it with filigree combs set with seed pearls, or, if they are able,
with jewelled butterflies and tiaras. Jewellery is not only a fashion
here, but an investment. Outside of Manila, Iloilo, and Cebu, banks
are practically unknown. The provincial man who is well to do puts his
money into houses and lands or into jewellery for his womankind. The
poor emulate the rich, and wear in imitation what their wealthy
neighbors can afford in the real.

Filipino women never affect the dominating attitude assumed by young
American coquettes. They have an infinite capacity for what we call
small talk and repartee; and, as they never aim for brilliancy and
are quite natural and unaffected, their pretty ways have all the
charm that an unconscious child's have. They love dress, and in one
lightning flash will take you in from head to foot, note every detail
of your costume, and, the next day, imitate whatever parts of it
please their fancy and fall in with their national customs. They are
adepts at mimicry and among themselves will lash us mercilessly. They
straighten up their shoulders, pull in the abdomen, and strut about
with a stiff-backed walk and with their hands hanging stiffly at
their sides. They themselves are full of magnetism and can advance
with outstretched hand and greet you in such a way as to make you
believe that your coming has put sunshine in their lives. Their
chief talk is of lovers in the two stages of _pretendiente_ and
_novio_, and they are full of hints and imputations to one another
of love affairs. Among young people, in spite of the restrictions
put about them to keep the opposite sexes from meeting _tete-a-tete_
or the remotest chances of "spooning," the air is surcharged with
romance. Apparently the Filipino boy has no period in his development
in which he hates girls. At twelve or fourtee