The daughter grew to be one of the most charming of girls. She never
left the fazenda. Brought up in pure and healthy surroundings, in the
midst of the beauteous nature of the tropics, the education given to
her by her mother, and the instruction received by her from her
father, were ample. What more could she have learned in a convent at
Manaos or Belem? Where would she have found better examples of the
domestic virtues? Would her mind and feelings have been more
delicately formed away from her home? If it was ordained that she was
not to succeed her mother in the management of the fazenda, she was
equal to any other position to which she might be called.

With Benito it was another thing. His father very wisely wished him
to receive as solid and complete an education as could then be
obtained in the large towns of Brazil. There was nothing which the
rich fazender refused his son. Benito was possessed of a cheerful
disposition, an active mind, a lively intelligence, and qualities of
heart equal to those of his head. At the age of twelve he was sent
into Para, to Belem, and there, under the direction of excellent
professors, he acquired the elements of an education which could not
but eventually make him a distinguished man. Nothing in literature,
in the sciences, in the arts, was a stranger to him. He studied as if
the fortune of his father would not allow him to remain idle. He was
not among such as imagine that riches exempt men from work--he was
one of those noble characters, resolute and just, who believe that
nothing should diminish our natural obligation in this respect if we
wish to be worthy of the name of men.

During the first years of his residence at Belem, Benito had made the
acquaintance of Manoel Valdez. This young man, the son of a merchant