e offered them to her. She condescended
to take one, and lighted it at a burning string which a child brought
us, receiving a copper for its pains. We mingled our smoke, and talked
so long, the fair lady and I, that we ended by being almost alone on
the quay. I thought I might venture, without impropriety, to suggest our
going to eat an ice at the _neveria_.* After a moment of modest demur,
she agreed. But before finally accepting, she desired to know what
o'clock it was. I struck my repeater, and this seemed to astound her
greatly.

* A _cafe_ to which a depot of ice, or rather of snow, is
attached. There is hardly a village in Spain without its
_neveria_.

"What clever inventions you foreigners do have! What country do you
belong to, sir? You're an Englishman, no doubt!"*

* Every traveller in Spain who does not carry about samples
of calicoes and silks is taken for an Englishman
(_inglesito_). It is the same thing in the East.

"I'm a Frenchman, and your devoted servant. And you, senora, or
senorita, you probably belong to Cordova?"

"No."

"At all events, you are an Andalusian? Your soft way of speaking makes
me think so."

"If you notice people's accent so closely, you must be able to guess
what I am."

"I think you are from the country of Jesus, two paces out of Paradise."

I had learned the metaphor, which stands for Andalusia, from my friend
Francisco Sevilla, a well-known _picador_.

"Pshaw! The people here say there is no place in Paradise for us!"

"Then perhaps you are of Moorish blood--or----" I stopped, not venturing
to add "a Jewess."

"Oh come! You must see I'm a gipsy! Wouldn't you like me to tell you _la
baji_?* Did you never hear tell of Carmencita? That's who I am!"

* Your fortune.

I was such a miscreant in those days--now fifteen years ago--that the
close proximity of a sorceress did not make me recoil in horror. "So be
it!" I thought. "Last week I ate my supper with a highway robber. To-day
I'll go and eat ices with a servant of the devil. A traveller should see
everything." I had yet another motive for prosecuting her acquaintance.
When I left college--I acknowledge it with shame--I had wasted a certain
amount of time in studying occult science, and had even attempted, more
than once, to exorcise the powers of darkness. Though I had been cured,
long since, of my passion for such investigations, I still felt a
certain attraction and curiosity with