, which is set out with ices, cakes, madeira wine, and so
forth; and, having ended their repast, they are again escorted to the
counter at which they desire to buy. But sometimes ladies bring their
escorts--husbands, brothers or other useful bankers and purveyors of
lucre--and the question arises, therefore, how to provide for them.
The device of the reading-room and the billiard-table is interposed
for this purpose, and a servant in livery informs them when the
buying is completed, and when their own duties--namely, of footing
the bills--are to begin. The care and ingenuity with which the French
guard against having any annoying moments in life are well exemplified
in this device. The free reading-room as an adjunct of the dry-goods
store is not wholly unknown in New York, but the free _buffet_ has not
yet, we believe, been transplanted there. A very much cheaper and a
far less praiseworthy mercantile trap for catching custom in the same
branch of trade also originates at Paris. One popular store has a
superb clerk, whose _specialite_ is to place himself near the door,
and to murmur whenever a new customer enters, "Hum! la jolie femme!"
The storekeeper is said to have observed that the effect was immediate
and lasting, the new-comer remaining a faithful and habitual customer;
but this device is not to be ranked for breadth of enterprise with the
one already mentioned.

* * * * *

The project to turn the famous palace of Madrid into a museum like
that of Versailles inspires Angel de Miranda to recall the strange
vicissitudes of government which the vast, majestic edifice has
witnessed--it and its predecessor on the same site--during seven
centuries. Situated in the western quarter of the city, its principal
face dominates a grand esplanade called the "Field of the Moor," after
the Moorish camp there established in the twelfth century. A fortress
first, the original structure was turned by Peter the Cruel, a lover
of fine architecture, into a royal castle, or _alcazar_, as it was
then called, the word being borrowed from the Arabic. It became
thenceforth an historic spot of Spain. It was the prison of Francis I.
after Pavia. It was the dwelling of Philip II., who first made it the
official royal residence; and there died his son, Don Carlos,
whose tragic career has inspired so much dramatic literature, from
Schiller's fierce handling of Philip II. to the widely different
treatment of the