"Your handmaid; she brought him his sup

per."

"Let her be called instantly."

Here was new matter of confusion.

The

chamber of the demure damsel was likewise empty; her bed had not been slept in; she had doubtless gone off with the culprit, as she had appeared for some days past to have had frequent conversations with him.

This was wounding the old governor in a tender part; but he had scarce time to wince at it when new misfortunes broke upon his view. On going into his cabinet he found his strong box open, the leather purse of the trooper abstracted, and with it a couple of corpulent bags of doubloons.

But how, and which way had the fugitives escaped? An old peasant who lived in a cottage by the roadside leading up into the Sierra declared that he had heard the tramp of a powerful steed just before daybreak passing up into the mountains. He had looked out at his casement, and could just distinguish a horseman, with a female seated behind him.

"Search the stables!" cried Governor Manco. The stables were searched; all the horses were in their stalls, excepting the Arabian steed. In his place was a stout cudgel tied up to the manger, and on it a label bearing these words: "A gift to Governor Manco from an Old Soldier.”

४

A FÊTE IN THE ALHAMBRA.

THE

HE saint's day of my neighbor and rival potentate, the count, took place during his sojourn in the Alhambra, on which occasion he gave a domestic fête, assembling around him the members of his family and household, while the stewards and old servants from his distant possessions came to pay him reverence and partake of the good cheer which was sure to be provided. It presented a type, though doubtless a faint one, of the establishment of a Spanish noble in the olden time.

The Spaniards were always grandiose in their notions of style. Huge palaces, lumbering equipages laden with footmen and lackeys, pompous retinues, and useless dependants of all kinds; the dignity of a noble seemed commensurate with the legions who loitered about his halls, fed at his expense, and seemed ready to devour him alive. This, doubtless, originated in the necessity of keeping up hosts

of armed retainers during the wars with the Moors; wars of inroads and surprises; when a noble was liable to be suddenly assailed in his castle by a foray of the enemy, or summoned to the field by his sovereign.

The custom remained after the wars were at an end, and what originated in necessity was kept up through ostentation. The wealth which flowed into the country from conquests and discoveries fostered the passion for princely establishments. According to magnificent old Spanish usage, in which pride and generosity bore equal parts, a superannuated servant was never turned off, but became a charge for the rest of his days; nay, his children, and his children's children, and often their relatives to the right and left, became gradually entailed upon the family. Hence the huge palaces of the Spanish nobility, which have such an air of empty ostentation from the greatness of their size compared with the mediocrity and scantiness of their furniture, were absolutely required in the golden days of Spain by the patriarchal habits of their possessors. They were little better than vast barracks for their hereditary generations of hangers-on that battened at the expense of a Spanish noble.

These patriarchal habits of the Spanish nobility have declined with their revenues, though

the spirit which prompted them remains, and wars sadly with their altered fortunes. The poorest among them have always some hereditary hangers-on, who live at their expense, and make them poorer. Some who, like my neighbor the count, retain a modicum of their once princely possessions, keep up a shadow of the ancient system, and their estates are overrun and the produce consumed by generations of idle retainers.

The count held estates in various parts of the kingdom, some including whole villages; yet the revenues collected from them were comparatively small; some of them, he assured me, barely fed the hordes of dependants nestled upon them, who seemed to consider themselves entitled to live rent-free and be maintained into the bargain, because their forefathers had been so since time immemorial.

The saint's day of the old count gave me a glimpse into a Spanish interior. For two or three days previous preparations were made for the fête. Viands of all kinds were brought up from town, greeting the olfactory nerves of the old invalid guards, as they were borne past them through the Gate of Justice. Servants hurried officiously about the courts; the ancient kitchen of the palace was again alive with the tread of cooks and scullions, and blazed with unwonted fires,

When the day arrived I beheld the old count in patriarchal state, his family and household around him, with functionaries who mismanaged his estates at a distance and consumed the proceeds; while numerous old worn-out servants and pensioners were loitering about the courts and keeping within smell of the kitchen.

It was a joyous day in the Alhambra. The guests dispersed themselves about the palace before the hour of dinner, enjoying the luxuries of its courts and fountains, and embosomed gardens, and music and laughter resounded through its late silent halls.

The feast, for a set dinner in Spain is literally a feast, was served in the beautiful Morisco Hall of "Las dos Hermanas." The table was loaded with all the luxuries of the season: there was an almost interminable succession of dishes, showing how truly the feast at the rich Camachos' wedding in “Don Quixote” was a picture of a Spanish banquet. A joyous conviviality prevailed round the board; for though Spaniards are generally abstemious, they are complete revellers on occasions like the present, and none more so than the Andalusians. For my part, there was something peculiarly exciting in thus sitting at a feast in the royal halls of the Alhambra, given by one who might claim remote affinity with its Moorish kings, and who was a lineal