he could not get the image of this most modest damsel out of his mind.  He sought the mansion of the padre.  Alas! it was above the class of houses accessible to a strolling student like himself.  The worthy padre had no sympathy with him; he had never been Estudiante sopista, obliged to sing for his supper.  He blockaded the house by day, catching a glance of the damsel now and then as she appeared at a casement; but these glances only fed his flame without encouraging his hope.  He serenaded her balcony at night, and at one time was flattered by the appearance of something white at a window.  Alas, it was only the nightcap of the padre.

“Never was lover more devoted; never damsel more shy:  the poor student was reduced to despair.  At length arrived the eve of St. John, when the lower classes of Granada swarm into the country, dance away the afternoon, and pass midsummer’s night on the banks of the Darro and the Xenil.  Happy are they who on this eventful night can wash their faces in those waters just as the cathedral bell tells midnight; for at that precise moment they have a beautifying power.  The student, having nothing to do, suffered himself to be carried away by the holiday-seeking throng until he found himself in the narrow valley of the Darro, below the lofty hill and ruddy towers of the Alhambra.  The dry bed of the river; the rocks which border it; the terraced gardens which overhang it, were alive with variegated groups, dancing under the vines and fig-trees to the sound of the guitar and castanets.

“The student remained for some time in doleful dumps, leaning against one of the huge misshapen stone pomegranates which adorn the ends of the little bridge over the Darro.  He cast a wistful glance upon the merry scene, where every cavalier had his dame; or, to speak more appropriately, every Jack his Jill; sighed at his own solitary state, a victim to the black eye of the most unapproachable of damsels, and repined at his ragged garb, which seemed to shut the gate of hope against him.

“By degrees his attention was attracted to a neighbor equally solitary with himself.  This was a tall soldier, of a stern aspect and grizzled beard, who seemed posted as a sentry at the opposite pomegranate.  His face was bronzed by time; he was arrayed in ancient Spanish armor, with buckler and lance, and stood immovable as a statue.  What surprised the student was, that though thus strangely equipped, he was totally unnoticed by the passing throng, albeit that many almost brushed against him.

“‘This is a city of old time peculiarities,’ thought the student, I and doubtless this is one of them with which the inhabitants are too familiar to be surprised.’  His own curiosity, however, was awakened, and being of a social disposition, he accosted the soldier.

     “’A rare old suit of armor that which you wear, comrade.  May I ask
     what corps you belong to?’