ecause of our stiff official
reception at the Royal Palace, which we visited in the gratification
of our passion for _patios._ It is now used for provincial or municipal
offices and guarded by sentries who indeed admitted us to the courtyard,
but would not understand our wish (it was not very articulately
expressed) to mount to the cloistered galleries which all the
guide-books united in pronouncing so noble, with their decorative busts
of the Roman Emperors and arms of the Spanish provinces. The sculptures
are by the school of Berruguete, for whom we had formed so strong
a taste at the museum; but our disappointment was not at the moment
further embittered by knowing that Napoleon resided there in 1809. We
made what we could of other _patios_ in the vicinity, especially of one
in the palace across from San Gregorio, to which the liveried porter
welcomed us, though the noble family was in residence, and allowed us to
mount the red-carpeted staircase to a closed portal in consideration of
the peseta which he correctly foresaw. It was not a very characteristic
_patio,_ bare of flower and fountain as it was, and others more fully
appointed did not entirely satisfy us. The fact is the _patio_ is to be
seen best in Andalusia, its home, where every house is built round it,
and in summer cooled and in winter chilled by it. But if we were not
willing to wait for Seville, Valladolid did what it could; and if we saw
no house with quite the _patio_ we expected we did see the house where
Philip II. was born, unless the enterprising boy who led us to it was
mistaken; in that case we were, Ophelia-like, the more deceived.

VII

[Illustration: 10 CHURCH OF SAN PABLO]

Such things do not really matter; the guide-book's object of interest is
seldom an object of human interest; you may miss it or ignore it without
real personal loss; but if we had failed of that mystic progress of the
silver car down the nave of San Pablo we should have been really if
not sensibly poorer. So we should if we had failed of the charming
experience which awaited us in our hotel at lunch-time. When we went out
in the morning we saw a table spread the length of the long dining-room,
and now when we returned we found every chair taken. At once we surmised
a wedding breakfast, not more from the gaiety than the gravity of the
guests; and the head waiter confirmed our impression: it was indeed a
_boda._ The party was just breaking up, and as we sat down at o