whose house adjoins, and in fact forms part of the convent--her bedroom leading into a tribune overlooking the chapel and the blessed sacrament. The view from the large garden, with the mountains on the one hand, and the stone pine woods on the other, is very pretty, and unlike anything else in the neighborhood of Madrid. The superior, a charming person, showed the ladies all over the house, which is large, commodious, and airy, and in which they have already upward of eighty pupils. They have a very pretty chapel, and in the parlor a very beautiful picture of St. Elizabeth, by a modern artist. One more "lion" was visited before leaving Madrid, and that was the armory, which is indeed well worth a long and careful examination. The objects it contains are all of deep historical interest. {170} There is a collar-piece belonging to Philip II., with scenes from the battle of St. Quentin exquisitely carved; a helmet taken from the unfortunate Boabdil, the last Moorish king of Granada; beautiful Moorish arms and Turkish banners taken at the battle of Lepanto, in old Damascus inlaid-work; the swords of Boabdil, and of Ferdinand and Isabella; the armor of the Cid, of Christopher Columbus, of Charles V., of St. Ferdinand, and of Philip II.; the carriage of Charles V., looking like a large bassinet; exquisite shields, rapiers, swords, and helmets; some very curious gold ornaments, votive crowns, and crosses of the seventh century; and heaps of other treasures too numerous to be here detailed. But our travellers were fairly exhausted by their previous sight-seeing, and gladly reserved their examination of the rest to a future day. At all times, a return to a place is more interesting than a first visit; for in the latter one is oppressed by the feeling of the quantity to be seen and the short time there is to see it in, and so the intense anxiety and fatigue destroy half one's enjoyment of the objects themselves. That evening they were to leave the biting east winds of Madrid for the more genial climate of sunny Malaga; and so, having made sundry very necessary purchases, including mantillas and chocolate, and having eaten what turned out to be their last good dinner for a very long time, they started off by an eight o'clock train for Cordova, which was to be their halting place midway. On reaching Alcazar, about one o'clock in the morning, they had to change trains, as the one in which they were branched off to Valencia; and for two hours they were kept waiting for the Cordova train. Oh! the misery of those wayside stations in Spain! One long low room filled with smokers and passengers of every class, struggling for chocolate, served in dirty cups by uncivil waiters, with insufficient seats and scant courtesy: no wonder that the Spaniards consider our waiting-rooms real palaces. You have no alternative in the winter season but to endure this foetid, stifling atmosphere, and be blinded with smoke, or else to freeze and shiver outside, where there are