In the evening, Rosilio, the painter who followed Villegas from Spain to Italy and has now followed him back from Rome to Madrid, came to greet us. When J. first knew him in Rome he was a lad of twenty, with a divine tenor voice. Rosilio, like Villegas, is an Andalusian, the race that has inherited most of the art and feeling of the Moor. In Rome R. used to be pounced upon by the other artists of the Spanish colony and made to sing Spanish songs, Andalusian ballads, Zingari ditties. His listeners were torn by homesickness and moved to tears by his songs. Now a strange thing has happened. With the translation of Villegas, the leading spirit of the group, to Spain, the colony broke up and many of them followed Villegas to Madrid. Now the tables are turned; the homesickness is for Rome. Last night Rosilio was called upon for song after song in the soft Roman dialect; he is a nightingale and sang the tears into my eyes and the heart into my throat! Among the habitués of the house is Don Antonio Weyler, son of General Weyler, once military governor of Cuba. Until recently the General has been the Secretary of War, but with the change of government is now out of office. Antonio has adopted us and we call him “the key” because he seems able to open all manner of locked doors to us. He intends to enter the Church,--the call seems to be more a political than a spiritual one, as he wishes to devote himself to diplomacy. His model seems to be our old friend, Monsignor Merry del Val, who is now Secretary of the State to the Pope. * * * * * December 30, 1905. J. is posing for the figure of the King of Spain in the wonderful portrait Villegas is making of Don Alfonso. He looks very nice in the court suit with the little dress sword and the order of the garter. This has only just been awarded to the King, and J. wore it to pose in, before Don Alfonso himself ever put it on. Yesterday his leg went to sleep--the King’s breeches are woefully tight for him--and nearly fell off the model table, spraining his finger. The King will hardly sit at all for the portrait and so J. sits or rather stands. The pose is a killing one, which accounts for the downfall. “The King, the King,” Villegas kept grumbling, “he can go hunting and amusing himself all the time, and I must stay and work on his picture, about which he doesn’t care enough to give me a decent number of sittings!” “A hundred years from now who will know or care that the King went hunting?” I said to Villegas; “and how many people will be glad that you stayed at home and worked on his picture?”