the
bull-fight; against the cruel treatment of domestic animals. Her work is
always fresh and interesting, full of humor and of pathos. A close
observer and a realist, she never dwells on the unlovely, is never
unhealthy or sentimental. Her name is a household word in Spain, where a
foremost critic wrote of 'La Gaviota':--"This is the dawn of a beautiful
day, the first bloom of a poetic crown that will encircle the head of a
Spanish Walter Scott."

Perhaps the best summary of her work is given in her own words, where
she says:--

"In composing this light work we did not intend to write a
novel, but strove to give an exact and true idea of Spain, of
the manners of its people, of their character, of their habits.
We desired to sketch the home life of the people in the higher
and lower classes, to depict their language, their faith, their
traditions, their legends. What we have sought above all is to
paint after nature, and with the most scrupulous exactitude, the
objects and persons brought forward. Therefore our readers will
seek in vain amid our actors for accomplished heroes or
consummate villains, such as are found in the romances of
chivalry or in melodramas. Our ambition has been to give as true
an idea as possible of Spain and the Spaniards. We have tried to
dissipate those monstrous prejudices transmitted and preserved
like Egyptian mummies from generation to generation. It seemed
to us that the best means of attaining this end was to replace
with pictures traced by a Spanish pen those false sketches
sprung from the pens of strangers."

THE BULL-FIGHT

From 'La Gaviota'

When after dinner Stein and his wife arrived at the place assigned for
the bull-fight, they found it already filled with people. A brief and
sustained animation preceded the fete. This immense rendezvous, where
were gathered together all the population of the city and its environs;
this agitation, like to that of the blood which in the paroxysms of a
violent passion rushes to the heart; this feverish expectation, this
frantic excitement,--kept, however, within the limits of order; these
exclamations, petulant without insolence; this deep anxiety which gives
a quivering to pleasure: all this together formed a species of moral
magnetism; one must succumb to its force or hasten to fly from it.

Stein, struck with vertigo, and his heart wrung, would have chosen
flight: his