One day when I was at the Court of Spain at Madrid, and conversing with a very honourable lady, as is the way at Kings’ Courts, she did chance to ask me this question following: _Qual era mayor fuego d’amor, el de la biuda, el de la casada, o de la hija moça_,—“which of the three had the greater heat of love, widow, wife or maid?” After myself had told her mine opinion, she did in turn give me hers in some such terms as these: _Lo que me parece d’ esta cosa es que, aunque las moças con el hervor de la sangre, se disponen á querer mucho, no deve ser tanto como lo que quieren las casadas y biudas, con la gran experiencia del negocio. Esta razon debe ser natural, como lo seria la del que, por haver nacido ciego de la perfeccion de la luz, no puede cobdiciar de ella con tanto deseo como el que vio, y fue privado de la vista._—“What I think on the matter is this: that albeit maids, with all that heat of blood that is theirs, be right well disposed to love, yet do they not love so well as wives and widows. This is because of the great experience of the business the latter have, and the obvious fact that supposing a man born blind, and from birth robbed of all power of vision, he can never desire the gift so strongly as he that hath sweetly enjoyed the same a while and then been deprived thereof.” To which she did presently add this further remark: _Con menos pena se abstiene d’ una cosa la persona que nunca supo, que aquella que vive enamorada del gusto pasado_—“How that one could with a lesser ado refrain from a thing one had never tried, than from one already known and loved.” Such were the reasons this lady did adduce on this moot point.