"In that magnificent apartment, decorated in the florid and profusely-gilded style of Charles the Fifth's time, filled with a deluge of light from crystal chandeliers, and over a slippery floor of clear and tesselated marble, I was led by my conductors through the glittering crowd of guests. On every hand I saw the brown uniforms, red facings, and silver epaulettes of the Spanish line, the blue and silver of the Portuguese, the green of the Cazadores, and the black velvet suits of old-fashioned cavaliers, wearing the crosses of St. James and of Calatrava. The ladies wore, almost uniformly, dresses of black or white, but with a profusion of the richest lace. Many of them looked like beautiful black-eyed brides, for their brows were wreathed with flowers, or they had one fresh red rose among their dark glossy hair, placed just beside the comb, from which fell that sweeping veil which like a gauzy mist floated about their superb figures. For years I had not looked on such a scene. "'Madre de Dios! what an officer!' 'O! Santos! that a British officer!' 'Morte de Dios! he a cavalier!' were the exclamations in every varying tone. I was led along the saloon; the music ceased in the gilded gallery; the dancers paused, mingled, and crowded about us; then reflecting that I had come straight from the camp and field, where my comrades were facing danger and death for these same Spaniards, I thought the exhibition made of me by the Major Don José Gonzalez, of the regiment of Leon, alike scurvy and ungrateful. Our division of the army had not received a farthing of pay for six months at that time, and many a brave fellow fell at Vittoria and the Pyrenees without receiving his hard-won arrears, which, more than probably, his relations never obtained either. "I was in the same plight in which I had marched from Aranjuez; my wings worn to black wire; coat purple, and patched with grey and blue at the elbows; my Tartan trews a mass of darns; scabbard, as I have said, six inches too short for the claymore; shoes all gone at the toes; and my last shirt all gone too, save the wrists and collar. But I was weatherbeaten as a smuggler; and I looked more like a soldier than the pomatumed Dons of the Spanish line, or the Cavaliers of Calatrava, who turned up their mustaches and muttered 'basta!' as I passed them, to where the Marquis stood, with a lady leaning on his arm.