The feast, for a set dinner in Spain is literally a feast, was served in the beautiful Morisco Hall of “Las dos Hermanas.” The table was loaded with all the luxuries of the season: there was an almost interminable succession of dishes; showing how truly the feast at the rich Camachos’ wedding in “Don Quixote” was a picture of a Spanish banquet. A joyous conviviality prevailed round the board; for though Spaniards are generally abstemious, they are complete revellers on occasions like the present, and none more so than the Andalusians. For my part, there was something peculiarly exciting in thus sitting at a feast in the royal halls of the Alhambra, given by one who might claim remote affinity with its Moorish kings, and who was a lineal representative of Gonsalvo of Cordova, one of the most distinguished of the Christian conquerors. The banquet ended, the company adjourned to the Hall of Ambassadors. Here every one endeavored to contribute to the general amusement, singing, improvising, telling wonderful tales, or dancing popular dances to that all-pervading talisman of Spanish pleasure, the guitar. The count’s gifted little daughter was as usual the life and delight of the assemblage, and I was more than ever struck with her aptness and wonderful versatility. She took a part in two or three scenes of elegant comedy with some of her companions, and performed them with exquisite point and finished grace; she gave imitations of the popular Italian singers, some serious, some comic, with a rare quality of voice, and, I was assured, with singular fidelity; she imitated the dialects, dances, ballads, and movements and manners of the gypsies and the peasants of the Vega with equal felicity; but everything was done with an all-pervading grace and a ladylike tact perfectly fascinating. The great charm of everything she did was its freedom from pretension or ambitious display, its happy spontaneity. Everything sprang from the impulse of the moment; or was in prompt compliance with a request. She seemed unconscious of the rarity and extent of her own talent, and was like a child at home revelling in the buoyancy of its own gay and innocent spirits. Indeed, I was told she had never exerted her talents in general society, but only, as at present, in the domestic circle. Her faculty of observation and her perception of character must have been remarkably quick, for she could have had only casual and transient glances at the scenes, manners, and customs depicted with such truth and spirit. “Indeed it is a continual wonder to us,” said the countess, “where the child [la Niña] has picked up these things, her life being passed almost entirely at home, in the bosom of the family.”