Trooper Tales — page 246: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

230 A Soldier and a Man. white soldiers that she was nameless? Oh, why was she born so? Why did her sister maidens persecute her so? “Ave Marie!’ Eulalie would mutter despairingly when her mind burned with all these thoughts. Even if she did not know her mother, there was hunger in her heart just the same. Even if she was without two front teeth, there was ardor in her soul just the same. Yes, and there was a rare softness in her cheeks, and little beauty tints that were as faint as they were wonderful. And there was a thrilling sadness in her great, dark, Spanish eyes, and long lashes shaded these tropical gems lest they should shine too brightly. And her hair—Eulalie’s hair —ah, it was as dusky as the night in a rayless Rio Grande gorge, and it was as soft as—ah, but there was nothing so soft as Eulalie’s hair! But Eulalie knew only that she was nameless, and that she was ugly when her red lips were parted, for the other senoritas did not tell her more than this. And after the big, white cavalrymen came, every day she cared less for Manrique, and every day she hated herself more, because the soldiers laughed and made love to the other senoritas, but did not come near her. When the moon-beams whitened the hard clay of the plaza, the soldiers strolled up and down, and in low tones they repeated all the Spanish words they knew into the ears of the other little red maidens; but Eulalie was alone, except for when Manrique was very persistent. And at last the great day came, when the trooper rode through the poverty district with the main guard detail— Eomichbooks- com