On The Other Hand Stretched Less Formal Woods,
With Fields For Such Polite Athletics As Tennis, Which The Example Of
The Beloved Young English Queen Of Spain Is Bringing Into Reluctant
Favor With Women Immemorially Accustomed To Immobility.
The road was
badly kept, like most things in Spain, where when a thing is done it is
expected to stay done.
Every afternoon it is a cloud of dust and every
evening a welter of mud, for the Iberian idea of watering a street is to
soak it into a slough. But nothing can spoil the Paseo, and that evening
we had it mostly to ourselves, though there were two or three carriages
with ladies in hats, and at one place other ladies dismounted and
courageously walking, while their carriages followed. A magnate of some
sort was shut alone in a brougham, in the care of footman and coachman
with deeply silver-banded hats; there were a few military and civil
riders, and there was distinctly a young man in a dog-cart with a groom,
keeping abreast the landau of three ladies in mantillas, with whom he
was improving what seemed a chance acquaintance. Along the course the
public park gave way at times to the grounds of private villas; before
one of these a boy did what he could for us by playing ball with a
priest. At other points there were booths with chairs and tables, where
I am sure interesting parties of people would have been sitting if they
could have expected us to pass.
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