adies is becoming every day more like the
French modes, although some elderly people still continue to use the
country dress, which, from its coolness, is much more comfortable than
the European habit; but it is rapidly going out, and young Spanish
ladies never appear to wear it, as formerly they frequently did,
within doors and in the country.

The mantilla is very rarely seen, except perhaps in the morning,
when some fair penitent goes or returns from one of the churches,
all of which are thrown open at a very early hour in the morning, at
or before daylight, to give the people an opportunity of going there
unostentatiously and unnoticed, to say their prayers and get home
again before any one, but those on an errand similar to their own,
is likely to meet them in the streets.

Nearly all the women, after reaching thirty years of age, get stout
or fall off in flesh and become very thin, for there apparently is
very little medium between the two degrees, as nearly all the old
women one sees are either very fat or very thin. Of the two sorts
the fat retain their good looks the longest; for after attaining a
certain age, the thin women are seldom anything but atrociously ugly,
probably caused by the climate more than anything else, as those
Europeans who enjoy good health at Manilla appear to become stout
in that climate, while those who get thin seldom appear to be well,
and are unable to stand a lengthened residence there.

In youth, however, their natural elasticity of character prevents
delicate girls getting sick, if moderate care be taken of them, and
they are generally rather more slender figures than English girls,
until reaching about twenty-five, when they begin to get fat or to
become thin; at that age they look very matronly.

_Apropos des dames._ Even in these degenerate days, Spanish blood
is as hot and Castilian gentlemen are as gallant as any of those of
former times. Not long ago the following circumstance happened at
the casino:--Don Camilo de T----, a natural son of the late King of
Spain, after dancing with a female acquaintance, rejoined a group
of acquaintances, who were standing together in a knot, criticising
the appearance of their several fair friends, when just as he joined
them some one happened to say to another that the lady he had just
been dancing with appeared to have padded her bosom. On hearing this,
Don Camilo took the speaker rather by surprise, by calling out "It
is a lie," in a