They were people with a "pull," and if anyone suggested in his presence that Rafael's mother was thinking of Remedios as a daughter-in-law, don Matías would redden with satisfaction and modestly reply: "I don't know; I imagine it's all talk.

In reality he had not expressed the slightest desire to marry; but there was his mother, taking everything for granted, arranging everything, imposing her will, accelerating his sluggish affection, literally forcing Remedios into his arms!

Cuba's tobacco is known by the name of the region in which it is produced; the Vuelta Abajo of Pinar del Rio; the Partidos of Havana Province; the Manicaragua and the Remedios of Santa Clara; and the Mayari of Oriente.

Besides, doña Bernarda invited Remedios to the Brull place frequently, and rarely indeed did Rafael come home of an afternoon without finding that timid maiden therea dull, handsomish sort of girl, dressed up in clothes that did cruel injustice to a peasant beauty rapidly transformed, by her father's good luck, into a young "society" girl.