The worst room in almost every Spanish house, is the dining-room, or rather eating-room, for every meal is taken in the same room: the floor has generally no matting,--the walls are unadorned,--the furniture is of the commonest description,--and the room itself so small, that the table, which nearly fills the room, is rarely large enough for more than six persons. This at once lets a stranger into an important secret in the economy of Madrid society; that there is no probability of receiving an invitation to dinner. I say Madrid society, because in the southern provinces, the dining-room and its uses are different. But although a stranger must not expect many invitations to dinner in Madrid, yet, if he be once received into a family upon a familiar footing, and should pay a visit while the family are at dinner, or just sitting down to dinner, he will not be denied admittance, but will be requested to walk into the eating-room, and a chair will be immediately placed for him at table. This civility, however, must be accepted with discretion; because the civil speech, which is invariably addressed to a stranger, when he concludes his first visit,--_Esta casa es a la disposition de V^{d.}_,--“This house is at your disposal,”--is a form of words not to be always interpreted literally. I have omitted to mention the Spanish kitchen, which is provided with a stone table, in which there are six or eight circular holes for charcoal, and numerous earthen vessels to fit these holes. Generally speaking, respectable Spanish houses, whether in Madrid, Seville, or Valencia, are scrupulously clean. I have never in any country, seen kitchens and bed-rooms so clean as they are in Spain. The description I have given may serve to convey to the reader a tolerably accurate idea of the houses of Madrid: some may contain a greater number of apartments, and others fewer; and some may be a little better, others a little worse furnished; but in the material points, they are all the same; they have all an elegant drawing-room, bed-rooms in recesses, a wretched dining-room, and a luxuriously fitted-up boudoir.