ed more lovely than ever in a white dress,
over which flowed a white gauzy mantilla, giving a kind of misty
indistinctness to the wavy outlines of her figure, and the warm tint
of her neck and arms. From her masses of black hair peeped one spot of
vivid white, a rosebud; and a green plumy leaf, a favourite ornament
with Spanish girls, drooped, bending, and soft as a feather, on one
side of her gold-and-tortoiseshell comb. The Major sat beside Carlota,
who, naturally frank, and looking upon him now as an old acquaintance,
would tap his arm most bewitchingly with her fan when she wanted to
direct his attention to any object of interest. So the Major sat by
her, all gallantry and smiles, gazing about him with wonder through
the double gold eyeglass, which still, in spite of the late expression
of popular feeling, bestrid his nose. He looked with the interest of a
child at everything--at the faces and dresses around him, distinct in
their proximity, and at those, confused in their details by distance,
on the opposite side of the arena. He shared in the distress of an
unfortunate person (a contractor for bulls, who had palmed some bad
ones on the public) who tried, as he walked conspicuously across
the ring, to smile off a torrent of popular execration about as
successfully as a lady might attempt to ward off Niagara with her
parasol, and who was, as it were, washed out at an opposite door,
drenched and sodden with jeers. And when the folding-gates were
opened, and the gay procession entered, my grandfather gazed on it
with delight, and shouted "Bravo!" as enthusiastically as if he had
been an habitual frequenter of bull-rings from his earliest youth.
First came the espadas or matadores, their hair clubbed behind like a
woman's, dressed in bright-coloured jackets, and breeches seamed with
broad silver lace, white stockings, shoes fastened with immense
rosettes, and having their waists girt with silk sashes, bearing on
their arms the blood-coloured cloaks that were to lure the bull upon
the sword-point. Next followed the chulos, similarly attired; then the
picadores, riding stiffly, with padded legs, on their doomed steeds;
and mules, whose office it was to drag off the dead bulls and horses,
harnessed three abreast as in classic chariots, and almost hidden
under a mass of gay housings, closed the procession. Marching across
the middle of the ring to the alcalde's box, they requested permission
to begin, and, it being granted,