LEGENDS OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
What became of this young lady—who so sacrificed propriety in order to gain riches—I never have heard mentioned: but it is certain that the street in which she lived immediately got the name of the Street of the Machincuepa—and the exact truth of every detail of this curious story is attested by the fact that that is its name now.
Perhaps the meaning of this word machincuepa, Señor—being, as Don Mendo said in his will, a word in use among the common people of Mexico—is unknown to you. The meaning of it, in good Spanish, is salto mortal—only it means more. And it was precisely that sort of an excessive somersault—there in the middle of the crowded Plaza Mayor at noonday that the most proud and the most dignified Doña Paz turned!
