gidity of the beverage. By lowering and
advancing the left shoulder, the vendor pours the contents of the cask
through a small neck or pipe into the glasses, which he carries in a
flat basket with cellaret partitions. A tumbler of this costs a
halfpenny; its imbibing occupies two or three minutes, and assuages for
hours the sufferings of the thirstiest palate.

At Madrid, the cafes have each its political colour; except that called
del Principe, after the adjoining theatre. In this, politics are less
characterised, literature having here taken up her quarters. It is
probable that she is a less profitable customer, being habitually less
thirsty. Accordingly, on putting your head into the door, you see a
saloon far more brilliantly lighted up than the others; but the
peripatetic doctrines seem to prevail. Few persons are seated at the
tables; and instead of the more profitable wear and tear of broken
glasses, the proprietor probably finds substituted a thankless annual
item for worn out floors. In the same street there is a club; but this
is an exotic importation and on the exclusive plan, not quite of London,
but of the Paris _cercles_.

In the cafes of Toledo, on the days of _fiesta_, the fair sex
predominates, especially in summer. The great resort is, however, the
Zocodover, from nine to ten in the evening. This little irregularly
formed _plaza_ is crowded like an assembly-room, and possesses its rows
of trees, although a respectable oak would almost fill it.

A soiree has occasionally been known to be given in Toledo, but it is an
occurrence of much rarity, and mostly occasioned by some unusual
event,--the arrival of a public singer, or, still more unusual, a newly
made fortune. The other evening I was admitted to one, the pretext for
which was a wedding. This ceremony takes place at the residence of the
bride, and although a subsequent formality is necessary in the Church,
its delay does not defer the validity of the union, nor its
consummation. The wedding-day arrived, the families and friends of both
parties assemble at eight in the evening.

The bride was distinguishable by a white veil or _mantilla_ in the
middle seat of a sofa, between her mother and sister, who rose to
receive the guests. A narrow table had been dressed up into a temporary
altar, and furnished with a crucifix and candles. All the party being
arrived, a priest left his chair, and entered an adjoining room to robe;
on his reappearance the co