Andalusians are dancing away the summer night.
Sometimes the dubious tones of a guitar and the notes of an amorous
voice, tell perchance the whereabout of some moonstruck lover
serenading his lady's window.

"Such is a faint picture of the moonlight nights I have passed
loitering about the courts and halls and balconies of this most
suggestive pile; 'feeding my fancy with sugared suppositions,' and
enjoying that mixture of reverie and sensation which steal away
existence in a southern climate; so that it has been almost morning
before I have retired to bed, and been lulled to sleep by the
falling waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa."

One of the writer's vantage points of observation was a balcony of the
central window of the Hall of Ambassadors, from which he had a
magnificent prospect of mountain, valley, and vega, and could look down
upon a busy scene of human life in an alameda, or public walk, at the
foot of the hill, and the suburb of the city, filling the narrow gorge
below. Here the author used to sit for hours, weaving histories out of
the casual incidents passing under his eye, and the occupations of the
busy mortals below. The following passage exhibits his power in
transmuting the commonplace life of the present into material perfectly
in keeping with the romantic associations of the place:--

"There was scarce a pretty face or a striking figure that I daily
saw, about which I had not thus gradually framed a dramatic story,
though some of my characters would occasionally act in direct
opposition to the part assigned them, and disconcert the whole
drama. Reconnoitring one day with my glass the streets of the
Albaycin, I beheld the procession of a novice about to take the
veil; and remarked several circumstances which excited the
strongest sympathy in the fate of the youthful being thus about to
be consigned to a living tomb. I ascertained to my satisfaction
that she was beautiful, and, from the paleness of her cheek, that
she was a victim rather than a votary. She was arrayed in bridal
garments, and decked with a chaplet of white flowers, but her heart
evidently revolted at this mockery of a spiritual union, and
yearned after its earthly loves. A tall stern-looking man walked
near her in the procession: it was, of course, the tyrannical
father, who, from some bigoted or sordid mo