by no means made with the hope or expectation that you will say _Muchas
gracias_, the equivalent of "No, thank you."

What is really difficult and embarrassing sometimes is to avoid having
pressed on your acceptance some article which you may have admired, in
your ignorance of the custom, which makes it the merest commonplace of
the Spaniard to "place it at your disposition," or to say: "It is
already the property of your Grace." Continued refusal sometimes gives
offence. The custom of never doing to-day what you can quite easily put
off till to-morrow is, unfortunately, still a common trait of Spanish
character; but as the Spaniard is rapidly becoming an alert man of
business, it is not likely that that will long remain one of the
national characteristics. Time in old days seemed of very little value
in a country where trade was looked upon as a disgrace, or at least as
unfitting any one to enter the charmed circle of the first _Grandeza_;
but that is of the past now in Spain, as in most countries. To be sure,
it has not there become fashionable for ladies to keep bonnet-shops or
dress-making establishments, nor to open afternoon tea-rooms or
_orchaterias_, still less to set up as so-called financiers, as it has
with us. However, even that may come to pass in the struggle for "_el_
high life," of which some of the Spanish writers complain so bitterly.
Imagination absolutely refuses, however, to see the Spanish woman of
rank in such surroundings.

For the rest, the Spanish woman, wherever you meet her, and in whatever
rank of society, is devout, naturally kind-hearted and sympathetic,
polite, and entirely unaffected; a good mother, sister, daughter;
hard-working and frugal, if she be of the lower class; fond above all
things of gossip, and of what passes for conversation; light-hearted,
full of fun and harmless mischief; born a coquette, but only with that