pervading tranquillity, and though the only bath in the annex was
confessedly on the ground floor, and we were to be two floors above, the
affair was very simple: the chambermaid would always show us where the
bath was.

With misgiving, lost in a sense of our helplessness, we tried to think
that the avenue under us was then quieting down with the waning day; and
certainly it was not so noisy as the plaza, which, resounded with the
whips and quips of the cabmen, and gave no signs of quiescence.
Otherwise the annex was very pleasant, and we took the rooms shown us,
hoping the best and fearing the worst. Our fears were wiser than our
hopes, but we did not know this, and we went as gaily as we could for
tea in the _patio_ of our hotel, where a fountain typically trickled
amidst its water-plants and a noiseless Englishman at his separate table
almost restored our lost faith in a world not wholly racket. A young
Spaniard and two young Spanish girls helped out the illusion with their
gentle movements and their muted gutturals, and we looked forward to
dinner with fond expectation. To tell the truth, the dinner, when we
came back to it, was not very good, or at least not very winning, and
the next night it was no better, though the head waiter had then, made
us so much favor with himself as to promise us a side-table for the rest
of our stay. He was a very friendly head waiter, and the dining-room was
a long glare of the encaustic tiling which all Seville seems lined with,
and of every Moorish motive in the decoration. Besides, there was a
young Scotch girl, very interestingly pale and delicate of face, at one
of the tables, and at another a Spanish girl with the most wonderful
fire-red hair, and there were several miracles of the beautiful obesity
which abounds in Spain.

When we returned to the annex it did seem, for the short time we kept