Our patron, Don Pedro Gonzalez, was a civil and obliging personage; but as we had good reason to know that he was in the French interest, we suspected that his conduct was not sincere, and we were the more confirmed in this opinion, from the very marked attention paid by him to a certain Madame, of vivacious manners, named Durand. The worthy Don being a bachelor, appearances favoured the rumour, that an intimacy of a more binding nature was likely to take place between them; or, in other words, the love-stricken Pedro was about to become a Benedict. To be on good terms with Mademoiselle was therefore equivalent to the same happy circumstances with regard to our host, who, accordingly, gave every facility to our exertions in gaining admittance to public places; and was, on various opportunities, highly useful to his guests. The conversation and agreeable disposition of the gay Frenchwoman served to dissipate any melancholy thoughts that might have haunted us. Without being decidedly handsome, she had a very good set of features, and was of such a pleasant temperament, that, although she was arrived at a reflecting age, her society was courted by many admiring swains, to the no small annoyance of the gallant Lothario himself, whose chief motive, in acting the part of our Cicerone, was, that he might withdraw the Officiales Ingleses from any temptation that might be presented to our susceptible hearts, by the wily blandishments and ensnaring charms of his lovely _dulcinea_. The principal places of amusement open at this time were the Opera House, in the Calle de Principe, and the theatre denominated El Collegio de la Cruz. What a college might have to do with the name of theatre, I could not imagine, unless it were that the loose and dissipated habits of collegians in general favored those entertainments, or that the members of the learned institutions at Madrid were the chief patrons of the stage. The house was opened at an early hour, and filled by a respectable though motley audience. Among the singular customs of Spain is that of placing the ladies and gentlemen at a most awful distance from each other; a custom which in our minds would have been more honoured in the breach than in the observance; and if we might be permitted to judge from the bewitching glances of their sparkling eyes, the fair senoritas would have had no sort of objection to a repeal of such an unnatural _disunion_. Had the performances been ever so delightful, they must of necessity, have proved "flat, stale and unprofitable," to the senses of gentlemen, banished as we were by such an abominable regulation from all intercourse or communion with that portion of the assembled audience in which was comprised all that was lovely and beautiful in nature's fair creation. The lunetta (or pit,) resembled a den or arena of wild men of the woods--such were the characters inclosed therein untamed by female influence.--The noisy