Portuguese children are taught to be very respectful to their parents, and those of the upper classes are carefully educated. It is the fashionable thing to have foreign nurses for them--English, French, or German--so that they may grow up to be good linguists. They go out for their daily walks and amuse themselves much like English boys and girls, hide-and-seek being a very favourite game; and they are just as fond as we are of hearing fairy-tales. They know all the old ones--“Cinderella,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and many others, besides many of the old Portuguese folk stories and legends, which are gradually dying out, but which are still firmly believed in by most of the peasants, and some of which I will tell you about presently. Girls generally have foreign governesses as they grow older, and the boys go to school very early. They work for long hours and have many examinations to pass. In Lisbon the young fellows play football and tennis, which they have taken from the English; but the Portuguese people are not naturally given to playing games. The little ones of the poorer classes have hardly any education at all, and are only too often to be seen begging in the streets. The one event in the year which the town children look forward to above all others is the Carnival. In Lisbon this is a great time for them, though many of the old customs are gradually disappearing, for, alas! in Portugal, as elsewhere, there are many people who think that the old-time ways are not sufficiently up-to-date. The Carnival used to last for many days, and all kinds of practical jokes were played, some of them not at all amusing for the luckless folk who were the victims. Strings were tied across the road to trip people up. Water was squirted at the passers-by, or gloves full of sand and packets of flour thrown down on them from the windows. Oftener, however, there would be pleasanter missiles--bouquets, buttonholes, and bonbons--which were caught and returned by the gay throng. All this is modified nowadays, but a good deal of frolic still goes on, and it is considered great fun to pin papers on people’s backs--“tails” they are called. Many nice and some nasty presents and letters are sent anonymously to friends through the post. Then, also, there are masquerades, when people go about in fancy costume, decorated carts are seen in the streets, and the whole town gives itself up to amusement. Masked balls take place in the theatres, everyone going in fancy dress, and wearing little black masks, so that no one is supposed to know with whom they are dancing, and many of the “costume balls” in smart society are given during the Carnival.