lt, the outcries of a furious multitude, and the reports
of firearms echoing and reverberating through the vaulted halls and
spacious courts of this immense edifice, and dubious whether their own
lives were not the object of the assault!

"After passing through various chambers of the palace, now silent
and sombre, but which I had traversed in former days, on grand court
occasions in the time of Ferdinand VII, when they were glittering
with all the splendor of a court, we paused in a great saloon, with
high-vaulted ceiling incrusted with florid devices in porcelain, and
hung with silken tapestry, but all in dim twilight, like the rest of
the palace. At one end of the saloon the door opened to an almost
interminable range of other chambers, through which, at a distance, we
had a glimpse of some indistinct figures in black. They glided into the
saloon slowly, and with noiseless steps. It was the little Queen, with
her governess, Madame Mina, widow of the general of that name, and her
guardian, the excellent Arguelles, all in deep mourning for the Duke of
Orleans. The little Queen advanced some steps within the saloon and then
paused. Madame Mina took her station a little distance behind her. The
Count Almodovar then introduced me to the Queen in my official capacity,
and she received me with a grave and quiet welcome, expressed in a very
low voice. She is nearly twelve years of age, and is sufficiently well
grown for her years. She had a somewhat fair complexion, quite pale,
with bluish or light gray eyes; a grave demeanor, but a graceful
deportment. I could not but regard her with deep interest, knowing what
important concerns depended upon the life of this fragile little being,
and to what a stormy and precarious career she might be destined. Her
solitary position, also, separated from all her kindred except her
little sister, a mere effigy of royalty in the hands of statesmen, and
surrounded by the formalities and ceremonials of state, which spread
sterility around the occupant of a throne."

I have quoted this passage, not more on account of its intrinsic
interest, than as a specimen of the author's consummate art of conveying
an impression by what I may call the tone of his style; and this appears
in all his correspondence relating to this picturesque and eventful
period. During the four years of his residence the country was in a
constant state of excitement and often of panic. Armies were marching
over the kingdom