at last Diego said:

"Come on now, Lee. We're still some ways from my Aunt Dolores, and she
always goes to bed with the chickens."

Trudging on, over the rough, slippery stones, they at last turned up a
side street of poor habitations, most of them in sad want of soap and
water, as well as paint and whitewash, and about half-way up the block
came to an open door, at which sat a chocolate-colored, withered old
woman, who was smoking a very long, thin cigar.

Diego stepped up to her and said, in Spanish:

"Dear aunt, do you not know me?"

The old woman stared at him a moment with her dim eyes, as she took the
cigar from her mouth, and then she jumped up and exclaimed, in the same
language:

"It is Diego! my Diego!"

And with that she flung her arms about him, hugged and kissed him, and
talked at such a rate that all the neighbors came to see what had
happened. At last Diego got clear of her, and turned to Lee, saying:

"She says they heard that I had gone off to the ends of the earth with a
confounded Gringo Yankee, and I was gone so long she thought I must be
dead."

Then he turned to the old woman and continued: