she may convey to him one most important piece of information. If she be married, she fans herself slowly; if still señorita, rapidly. The caballero, therefore, at once ascertains his chances and his risks. This fact I obtained from a Spanish lady of rank in Madrid, the wife of a gentleman in a high official situation. The motion of the fan too, marks distinctly, and with the utmost nicety, the degree of intimacy that subsists between one lady and another. The shake of the fan is the universal acknowledgment of acquaintance; and according as the fan is open or shut, the intimacy is great or small. These are trifling things, yet they are worth telling. But let me return to the Prado, where, having decided upon the claims of the Castilian ladies, I had leisure to observe its other novelties. Here I saw little of the sombreness I had remarked on the streets, for many of the ladies wore white mantillas; and in the evening, coloured rather than black gowns are the _mode_. The very great number, too, of officers of the guards, with their high cocked hats, and coats entirely covered with silver lace, gave additional animation to the scene. Other pictures of a different kind the eye occasionally caught,--here and there a portly priest, with his ample gown and great slouched hat, mingling in the throng, and evidently enjoying the scene and its gaiety,--aloof from the crowd, and in the most retired walks, with hurried step and downcast head, a friar, in his grey, brown or white cassock,--now and then a tall Andalusian peasant, with his tapering hat, his velvet and silver embroidered jacket and crimson sash, his unbuttoned gaiters and white stockings,--the Asturian nurse, with her short brown jerkin, petticoat of blue and yellow, trimmed with gold, and bare head. It is always a mark of a woman’s consequence in Madrid to hire an Asturian nurse; they are supposed to be models of health and strength, and certainly if breadth of figure be the criterion of these, the ladies of Madrid make a prudent choice: I never saw such women as the women of the Asturias. In France, where the women are generally _mince_, one of them might be exhibited as a curiosity.