An effectual warning was afforded me, almost immediately on my arrival at Seville, against frequenting this portion of the town without precaution after nightfall. An acquaintance, a young Sevillano, who had been my daily companion during the first five or six days which followed my arrival, was in the habit of frequenting with assiduity, some of the above-mentioned streets. He inhabited one of them, and was continually drawn by potent attraction towards two others. In one, in particular, he followed a practice, the imprudence of which, in more than one respect, as he was much my junior, I had already pointed out to him. A lady, as you have already conjectured, resided in the house, in question. My friend, like many of his compatriots, "sighed to many;" but he loved this one; and she was precisely the one that "could ne'er be his." She allowed him, however, a harmless rendezvous, separated from all danger, as she thought, by the distance from the ground to the balcony, situated on the first-floor. The lady being married, and regular visiting being only possible at formal intervals, these interviews had by degrees alarmingly, as appeared to me, increased in frequency and duration; until at length during two hours each evening, my acquaintance poured forth in a subdued tone, calculated to reach only the fair form which bent over the balcony, his tender complaints. The youth of these climes are communicative on subjects which so deeply interest their feelings; and whether willing or not, one is often admitted to share their secrets at the commencement of an acquaintance. It was thus that I had had an opportunity of lecturing my friend on the various dangers attending the practice in which he was persisting, and of recommending him--the best advice of all being, of course, useless--to revive the more prudent custom of by-gone times, and if he must offer nightly incense to the object of his fire, to adopt the mode sanctioned by Count Almaviva, and entrust his vows to the mercenary eloquence of choristers and catgut--to anything--or anybody, provided it be done by proxy. My warning was vain; but the mischief did not befall him exactly in the manner I had contemplated. His cousin opened my door while I was breakfasting, and informed me that L---- was in the house of Don G---- A----, and in bed, having received a wound the previous night from some robbers; and that he wished to see me. I found him in a house, into which I had already been introduced, being one of those he most frequented. A bed had been prepared in the drawing-room, all the window-shutters of which were closed, and he was lying there, surrounded by the family of his host, to whom was added his sister. As he was unable to speak above a whisper, I was given the seat by the bedside, while he related to me his adventure.