he
habit of smoking in past times is a mistake. If they do so now it is an
instance of the race for "_el_ high life," of which the writer quoted
above complains.

In imitation of foreign customs, many of the ladies in Madrid and the
more modern cities have established their "day" for afternoon visitors.
After all, this is but the Spanish _tertulia_ at a different hour, but
if it should ever supersede the real evening _tertulia_ it will be a
thousand pities; it would be far more sensible if we were to adopt the
Spanish custom, rather than that they should follow ours. In the
evening, the hour varying, of course, with the time of year, all Madrid
goes to drive, ride, or walk in the Buen Retiro, now called the Parque
de Madrid. It is beautifully laid out, with wide, well-kept roads and
well-cared-for gardens; it has quite superseded the Paseo de la Fuente
Castellano, which used to be the "Ladies' Mile" of Madrid.

Madrid is a city of which one hears the most contradictory accounts. The
mere traveller not uncommonly pronounces it "disappointing, uninteresting,
less foreign than most Continental capitals,"--"everything to be seen at
best second-rate France," etc., etc. The Museo, of course, must be
admired,--even the most ignorant know that to contemn that is to write
themselves down as Philistines;--but for the rest, they confess themselves
glad to escape, after two or three days spent in La Corte, to what they
fancy will prove more interesting towns, or, at any rate, to something
which they hope will be more characteristic. But those who settle in
Madrid, or know it well, winter and summer, and have friends among its
hospitable people, come to love it, one might almost say, strangely,
because it is not the love that springs from habit or mere familiarity,
but something much warmer and more personal. One charm it has, which is
felt while there and pleasantly remembered in absence--its much-maligned
climate. The position of Madrid at the apex of a high table-land, two
thousand one hundred and sixty feet above the level of the sea, with its
wide expanse of plain on every hand but that on which the Guadarramas
break the horizon with their rugged, often snow-capped, peaks, naturally
exposes it to rapid changes of temperature; that is to say, that if the
snow is still lying on the Sierra, and the wind should chance to blow from
that direction on Madrid, which is steeped in sunshine winter and summer
for far the greater part of