[1] “A thoroughly national hotel ... I look down from my window through marble colonnades ... perfumed with the scent of ... trees, which bend ... over a richly sculptured fountain.”—_Hare’s Wanderings in Spain_, pp. 93, 94. [2] Instruments found everywhere in Spain. [3] “The bridge over the Guadalquivir ... composed of sixteen arches ... very picturesque ... built by Octavius Cæsar.”—_O’Shea’s Guide to Spain._ [4] “What spot can be more delightful than the grand old court, surrounded by flame-shaped battlements ... beneath huge orange trees planted some three hundred years ago.”—_Hare’s Wanderings in Spain_, p. 88. [5] “From the court you step with bewilderment into a roofed-in forest of pillars ... amid the thousand still remaining columns of varied color, thickness, and material, which divide the building into twenty-nine naves one way and nineteen the other. Into the midst of all a cathedral was engrafted in 1547.” (It was built originally for a mosk.)—_Idem_, p. 89. [6] Gonsalvo de Cordova, called “the great captain,” born 1443. [7] Ferdinand of Aragon, whose forces, setting out from Cordova, drove Abu-Abdillah, or Boabdil, the king of the Moors, from Granada in 1492. [8] Titles applied to the city in different periods of its history,—when inhabited by the Moors, the Goths, and before the Romans conquered it. [9] Referring to the “blue blood” of the Spanish aristocracy, supposed to be indicative of Roman ancestry. THE FLOWER PLUCKED. “You say you leave forever? Our walks and talks have had their day? You say this flower blooms not to stay, Nor friendship;—we must sever?— Alas, to think my favorite flower, That so delay’d its blooming hour Through all the stormy weather, Through March and April, May and June Has open’d now to shut so soon! Nay, nay; it shall not fail me so. It yet shall feel—though but my blow.” She spoke, and smote with all her might The fragile stem and blossom bright; And both flew off together. “Not so,” he cried; “nay, never. Forgive it! Spare the flower! alas!” And knelt and pick’d it from the grass. “What, did she love thee ever? If so the blow she gave to thee Has made thee doubly dear to me. Ah, Flower, in sunny weather, And not in March, nay, nay, in June Thy leaves in opening brought this boon; Nor so shall close! There waits for thee One mission more, thy best, I see!” He spoke, and placed the fallen flower Against his heart—and so that hour The maid and flower together. THE ARTIST’S AIM.