g the people.
Beautiful girls stood at the windows, so that the whole way was lined
with them, and their lips were not unwilling to break into charming
smiles. One especially I remember who was used to sit on a balcony at a
street-corner; her hair was irreproachable in its elaborate arrangement,
and the red carnation in it gleamed like fire against the night. Her
face was long, fairer-complexioned than is common, with regular and
delicate features. She sat at her balcony, with a huge book open on her
knee, which she read with studied disregard of the passers-by; but when
I looked back sometimes I saw that she had lifted her eyes, lustrous and
dark, and they met mine gravely.

And in the country I passed through long fields of golden corn, which
reached as far as I could see; I remembered the spring, when it had all
been new, soft, fresh, green. And presently I turned round to look at
Seville in the distance, bathed in brilliant light, glowing as though
its walls were built of yellow flame. The Giralda arose in its wonderful
grace like an arrow; so slim, so comely, it reminded one of an Arab
youth, with long, thin limbs. With the setting sun, gradually the city
turned rosy-red and seemed to lose all substantiality, till it became a
many-shaped mist that was dissolved in the tenderness of the sky.

Late in the night I stood at my window looking at the cloudless heaven.
From the earth ascended, like incense, the mellow odours of summer-time;
the belfry of the neighbouring church stood boldly outlined against the
darkness, and the storks that had built their nest upon it were
motionless, not stirring even as the bells rang out the hours. The city
slept, and it seemed that I alone watched in the silence; the sky still
was blue, and the stars shone in their countless millions. I thought of
the city that never rested, of London with its unceasing roar, the
endless streets, the greyness. And all around me was a quiet serenity, a
tranquillity such as the Christian may hope shall reward him in Paradise
for the troublous pilgrimage of life. But that is long ago and passed
for ever.

XII

[Sidenote: The Alcazar]

Arriving at Seville the recollection of Cordova took me quickly to the
Alcazar; but I was a little disappointed. It has been ill and tawdrily
restored, with crude pigments, with gold that is too bright and too
clean; but even before that, Charles V. and his successors had made
additions out of harmony with Mo