from Fernan Caballero's _Clemencia_. In spite of this firmly rooted
opinion, however, that the national customs are best, and in this
particular it seems indeed as if they were more reasonable, the wedding
journey is slowly being adopted in what they call "_el_ high life," and
it may some day become one of the fixed institutions of the land, as it
is with us. All this is but another proof of the fact that fashions are
now cosmopolitan things, and that among the educated and wealthy classes
in all countries there are often many more points of resemblance than
are to be found between any given group of these cosmopolites and some
of their own fellow countrymen taken from a lower class in society.

Some time after the Prince of Naples, who is now the King of Italy, had
attracted the favorable comment of all thinking people for his
determination not to wed until he married for love, a similar occurrence
in Spain revealed the fact that Maria Cristina, the queen-regent, was
determined to accept the modern and sensible notion of marriage for one
of her own children, and thus incidentally to give to her people in
general the benefit of a powerful precedent in such matters. Mention has
already been made of the fact that, according to certain laws, a Spanish
girl may now refuse to marry at her parents' dictation; but, in spite of
the fact that such laws exist, it cannot be said that they are often
called into play, for the daughter is still in such a state of childish
dependence upon her father and mother, that any such step as described,
which amounts to nothing more or less than a revolt against parental
authority, would fill her with dismay and would prove more than she
would dare to attempt. The laws upon the statute books indicate that
there is a public appreciation of the fact that marriage should not be a
matter of coercion, but among the people in general the old idea is
still more powerful, and Spanish daughters are married daily to the
husbands chosen by their match-making mothers or aunts. In the face of
this popular custom, and in spite of the fact that royal marriages, on
account of their somewhat political character, have generally been made
without regard to sentiment, the queen-regent decided that her oldest
daughter, the Princess of Asturias, should marry the man she loved.
There were various worldly, or rather political, reasons against the
proposed alliance; but Maria brushed them all aside and allowed the
whol