ted _sangre azul_; but there is no hard-and-fast line. The
successful politician or the popular writer has the entree anywhere,
and there is no difficulty about going into the very best of the Court
society, if one has friends in that _tertulia_. One guest asks
permission to present his or her friend, the permission is courteously
granted, and the thing is done. Poets and dramatists are in great
request in Madrid society. It is the custom to ask them to recite their
own compositions, and as almost every Spaniard is a poet, whatever else
he may be, there is no lack of entertainment. All the popular
authors--Campoamor, Nunez de Arce, Pelayo, Valera, and many others--may
thus be heard; but the paid performer (so common in London
drawing-rooms) of music, light drama, or poetical recitation, is
probably absolutely unknown in Madrid society.

During the season balls are given occasionally at the Palace, and at the
houses of the great nobility, the Fernan-Nunez, the Romana, the
Medinaceli, and others, whose names are as well known in Paris and
London as in Madrid. Dinner-parties are also becoming much more common
in private houses than they were before the Restoration, and as for
public dinners, they are so frequent that they bid fair to become of the
same importance as the like institution in England. Costume balls,
dances, dinners, and evening entertainments among the _corps
diplomatique_ abound. Everyone in Madrid has a box or stall at the
Teatro Real, or opera-house, and many ladies make a practice of
"receiving" in their _palcos_; and in the entrance-hall, after the
performance is over, an hour may be spent, while ostensibly waiting for
carriages, in conversation, gossip, mild flirtation, and generally
making one's self agreeable among the groups all engaged in the same
amusement. Almost everyone, also, whatever his means may be, has an
_abono_ at one or other of the numerous theatres, sometimes at more than
one; and if it be a box, the subscribers take friends with them, or
receive visits there. It is a common thing, either in the opera-house or
in the theatres, for a couple of friends to join in the _abono_; in this
case it is arranged on which nights the whole box or the two or three
stalls shall be the property of each in turn. Besides paying for the
seats, there is always a separate charge each night made for the
_entrada_--in the Teatro Real it is a peseta and a half, in the others
one peseta. By this arrangement an