Howell, “we hold to be an impression of love and affection, for the face is oftentimes a true index of the heart.” The Infanta, at this period, was only sixteen and tall for her age--“a very comely lady,” says the agent, “rather of a Flemish complexion than Spanish, fair-haired, and carried a most pure mixture of red and white in her face: she is full and big-lipped, which is held as beauty rather than a blemish.” Charles was now honored with a complete court establishment and apartments in the palace; there was revelry in camp and city; and the gallantry of the journey so touched this high-minded people, that they declared the beautiful bride ought to have been made Charles’s immediate reward. Gayety was at every heart and poesy, in the person of Lope de Vega, celebrated “the Stuart,” and “Marie, his star.” In all the festivals and carousals at court, Charles was not once permitted to approach “his star.” The royal family sat together under a canopy, but there was ever some unwelcome intervener between the lovers, and the prince was compelled to satisfy his ardent soul with gazing. The worthy English agent records that he has seen him “have his eyes immovably fixed upon the Infanta half-an-hour together, in a thoughtful, speculative posture, which,” he sagaciously adds, “would needs be tedious unless affection did sweeten it.” It was on one of these occasions that Olivarez, with less poetic truth than energy of expression, said that Charles watched her _as a cat does a mouse_. Whatever outward respect Charles may have voluntarily offered to the prejudices and observances of Spanish ceremony, he, and perhaps the blushing Infanta, thought it very cumbersome love-work for young hearts. Words had passed between them, it is true, but only through the medium of an interpreter, and always in the presence of the king, for Philip “sat hard by, to overhear all,” and understand if he could, the interpretations made by Lord Bristol.