Was there ever anything so incongruous as a hat and veil in Ehrenberg! For a long time I had not seen a woman in a hat; the Mexicans all wore a linen towel over their heads.
But her beauty was startling, and, after all, I thought, a woman so handsome must try to live up to her reputation.

Now for some weeks Jack had been investigating the sulphur well, which was beneath the old pump in our corral.

He had had a long wooden bath-tub built, and I watched it with a lazy interest, and observed his glee as he found a longshoreman or roustabout who could caulk it.

The shape was exactly like a coffin (but men have no imaginations), and when I told him how it made me feel to look at it, he said: "Oh! you are always thinking of gloomy things.
It's a fine tub, and we are mighty lucky to find that man to caulk it.
I'm going to set it up in the little square room, and lead the sulphur water into it, and it will be splendid, and just think," he added, "what it will do for rheumatism!" Now Jack had served in the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteers during the Civil War, and the swamps of the Chickahominy had brought him into close acquaintance with that dread disease.
As for myself, rheumatism was about the only ailment I did not have at that time, and I suppose I did not really sympathize with him.

But this energetic and indomitable man mended the pump, with Fisher's help, and led the water into the house, laid a floor, set up the tub in the little square room, and behold, our sulphur bath! After much persuasion, I tried the bath.