SYLV. Then the sweet fruit which may arise SYLV. What instantly extinguishes it? SYLV. And these two feelings banished? This is the hour of conquest, the consummate hour in the maiden's life. There are the evening walks on the Prado, when glances may come and go; but then all the world is by, and there are music, and dresses, and gossip. The night falls, and if the lover feels that he has not been unwelcome he goes. to his lady's home. Instead of sending in his card, and hanging his overcoat on the rack, and waiting in the parlor until the idol of his dreams comes down, he knocks at the barred window. If there is no response he will play a serenade on the guitar. I am led to make this latter observation more by what I have seen in operas than from what I have observed in Spain. Most of the lovers that I have seen at their barred windows have been without musical instruments. I take it, therefore, that the guitar comes in as overture perhaps, in the beginning, before Romeo has made any headway, and when he thinks an air from "Rigoletto" or "Don Pasquale " may develop the situation or entice a glove or a ribbon. If Romeo is known to the family of his Juliet as a serious, proper person, who has no day of dissipation but the bull fights or Corpus Christi, then he is allowed to come to the barred window, and Juliet may talk to him through the raised edge of the curtain. Perhaps he may be allowed to touch her lips with his fingers; but his presence at the window indicates that he is a favored lover. He never enters the home of his love until he comes to take her to church. Perhaps in special cases the evening before the ceremony he may come, with a few friends. It is as you saunter along the streets that you see the outside life of Spain. As the afternoon lengthens and the white |