Teatro Real, or opera-house, and many ladies make a practice of
"receiving" in their _palcos_; and in the entrance-hall, after the
performance is over, an hour may be spent, while ostensibly waiting for
carriages, in conversation, gossip, mild flirtation, and generally
making one's self agreeable among the groups all engaged in the same
amusement. Almost everyone, also, whatever his means may be, has an
_abono_ at one or other of the numerous theatres, sometimes at more than
one; and if it be a box, the subscribers take friends with them, or
receive visits there. It is a common thing, either in the opera-house or
in the theatres, for a couple of friends to join in the _abono_; in this
case it is arranged on which nights the whole box or the two or three
stalls shall be the property of each in turn. Besides paying for the
seats, there is always a separate charge each night made for the
_entrada_--in the Teatro Real it is a peseta and a half, in the others
one peseta. By this arrangement anyone can enter the theatre by paying
the _entrada_, and take chance of finding friends there, frequently
spending an hour or so going from one box to another. All this gives the
theatre more the air of being an immense "At Home" than what we are
accustomed to in England. The intervals between the acts are very long,
and, as all the men smoke, somewhat trying.

Spanish women are great dressers, and the costumes seen at the
race-meetings at the Hippodrome, and in the Parque, are elaborately
French, and sometimes startling. The upper middle class go to Santander,
Biarritz, or one of the other fashionable watering-places, and it is
said of the ladies that they only stop as many days as they can sport
new costumes. If they go for a fortnight they must have fifteen
absolutely new dresses, as they would never think of putting one on a
second time. They take with them immense trunks, such as we generally
associate with American travellers; these are called _mundos_