"Our guard was soon on the most sociable terms with us, allowing us to sit in front of our door, and kindly doing any little errand which might add to our limited stock of comforts. In the room adjoining ours, the two doors not being four yards apart, lived a Mexican family, the head of which was a zapatero or shoemaker. His wife was a young, chatty, well-formed woman and had not one side of her face been marked by a large, ugly, red spot, would have been exceedingly comely. ...On the following morning, it appeared to us that the mark on the face of our female neighbour had changed its position. ...Early on the third morning she appeared before us with a face not only fair, but very pretty—not a spot or blemish to be discovered. At first we did not recognise her, but on inquiring, we found that all the spots which had so much disfigured her had been placed there by herself, the juice of some red berry being used for the purpose. ...The custom is universal among the females of New Mexico, and when there is no weed or berry that furnishes a deep-red tint, they use vermilion, or even a reddish clay. ...The belles of New Mexico appear to be ignorant of the aphorism that "beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.""