What is really difficult and embarrassing sometimes is to avoid having pressed on your acceptance some article which you may have admired, in your ignorance of the custom, which makes it the merest commonplace of the Spaniard to "place it at your disposition," or to say: "It is already the property of your Grace." Continued refusal sometimes gives offence. The custom of never doing to-day what you can quite easily put off till to-morrow is, unfortunately, still a common trait of Spanish character; but as the Spaniard is rapidly becoming an alert man of business, it is not likely that that will long remain one of the national characteristics. Time in old days seemed of very little value in a country where trade was looked upon as a disgrace, or at least as unfitting any one to enter the charmed circle of the first _Grandeza_; but that is of the past now in Spain, as in most countries. To be sure, it has not there become fashionable for ladies to keep bonnet-shops or dress-making establishments, nor to open afternoon tea-rooms or _orchaterias_, still less to set up as so-called financiers, as it has with us. However, even that may come to pass in the struggle for "_el_ high life," of which some of the Spanish writers complain so bitterly. Imagination absolutely refuses, however, to see the Spanish woman of rank in such surroundings. For the rest, the Spanish woman, wherever you meet her, and in whatever rank of society, is devout, naturally kind-hearted and sympathetic, polite, and entirely unaffected; a good mother, sister, daughter; hard-working and frugal, if she be of the lower class; fond above all things of gossip, and of what passes for conversation; light-hearted, full of fun and harmless mischief; born a coquette, but only with that kind of coquetry which is inseparable from unspoiled sex, with no taint of sordidness about it; and, before all things, absolutely free from affectation. Their own expression, _muy simpática_, gives better than any other the charm of the Spanish woman, whether young or old, gentle or simple. It was the possession of all these qualities in a high degree by Doña Isabel II. that covered the multitude of her sins, and made all who came within her influence speak gently of her, and think more of excuses than of blame. It is these qualities which give so much popularity to her daughter, the Infanta Isabel, who, like her mother, is above all things _muy Española_. That the Spanish woman is passionate, goes without saying; one only has to watch the quick flash of her eye--"throwing out sparks," as their own expression may be translated--to be aware of that. While the eyes of the men are for the most part languid, only occasionally flashing forth, those of the women are rarely quiet for a moment; they sparkle, they languish, they flame--a whole gamut of expression in one moment of time; and it must be confessed that they look upon man as their natural prey. CHAPTER IV SPANISH SOCIETY