The gross, sensual mouth with its loose-hanging lips; the blotched and clammy skin; the pale, watery eyes with their inflamed rims and flabby pouches; the sunken chest, skinny neck and limbs; and the thin rasping voice--all cried aloud the shame of a misspent life.

It was as clearly evident that he was a man of wealth and, in the eyes of the world, of an enviable social rank.
As the young man passed and repassed them, where they stood under the big pepper tree that shades the depot, the man--in his harsh, throaty whisper, between spasms of coughing--was cursing the train service, the country, the weather; and, apparently, whatever else he could think of as being worthy or unworthy his impotent ill-temper.

The shadowy suggestion of womanhood--glancing toward the young man--was saying, with affected giggles, "O papa, don't! Oh isn't it perfectly lovely! O papa, don't! Do hush! What will people think ?" This last variation of his daughter's plaint must have given the man some satisfaction, at least, for it furnished him another target for his pointless shafts; and he fairly outdid himself in politely damning whoever might presume to think anything at all of him; with the net result that two Mexicans, who were loafing near enough to hear, grinned with admiring amusement.

The woman stood a little apart from the others.

Coldly indifferent alike to the man's cursing and coughing and to the daughter's ejaculations, she appeared to be looking at the mountains.