Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-03-31
THE MAIDS OF SEVILLE.
They All Have a Fashion of Wearing Red

They All Have a Fashion of Wearing Red
Roses.
The day after the visit to Cordovs I
was at Seville, Byron's Seville, the Sc
vile which it is the received tradition
to rave about as the very home of exotic
grace and beauty, writes William Henry
Bishop, the novelist. 1t was at first
visible on distant height, like a city
in fairy tale, and the brown plain
over which we approached it was desti'
tute of houses, while whole tracts were
covered with small violet flower, that
gave them the aspect of stretches at sea.
There is a great deal of luck in these
matters, and if did not see in Seville
the full display CT female loneliness that
one is really bound to see there, saw
the girls and women coming out of the
great government tobacco factory al
most the very first thing. 1 remarked
many and many a pale face among
them, plenty of drawn and ugly feat
ures and figures without the least dis.
tinction, the result of unhygienic condi-
tions, sickness, hard work and poverty.
They all wore red roses in their hail
like uniform. Red roses in the hair
We're the rule almost without exception
that month in Andalusia. First, in going
up to Granada from Malaga, young
women showed themselves at the small
stations thus adorned. 1 admit, an &C.
casional scarlet carnation.
A group of brunette faces peered
through the orange tree shrubbery just
before Seville like another kind of fruit.
The women sat sewing, a group of
young tailoresses, for instance, in open
Hnnre inst off tho strnnf r0nIflU hid
behind a curtain on the balconies above,
and the red rose in their dark tresses
was never forgotten. Much more rare
~ one fastens her mantilla. together at
the breast with bunch of them.
The ladies Of higher grade who
came out from the entertainment given
by group of fashionable young men at
the bull-ring one Sunday afternoon, the
ladies who drove in the throng of fine
equippages in the Pasco by the Guadal-
culver, had often bad compilations and
some of the elder ones mustaches like
grenadiers. But all were very Spanish,
they Haunted the southern fan, they
wore the mantilla STILL thank Heaven,
though its days are probably numbered
with the advance of the railroad; and
some cot the beautiful carriages were
drawn by mules, all bedecked with col
ored trappings.
Spanish women are rather picturesque
than beautiful, and it is the painter-lilSe
effects to which they lend themselves
that account for the enthusiasm about
them quite as much as their actual good
looks. 1t is a land where they are not
afraid of vivid colors. Crimson and
yellow drape not only the balconies, but
the backs of the dark-haired women in
neckerchiefs or shawls of China silk
wrought with gay patterns of flowers
or birds.
Look at yonder maid in the Sevillian
suburb of Triana. She wears a China
shawl of brilliant yellow embroidered
with green and scarlet, and she stands
idly awaiting somebody in the doorway
of low house, dazzling white in the
sunlight. From a window near by tum-
bles out perfect cascade of gorgeous
scarlet cactus blossoms. The best of it
is in no way tawdry; you no more think
of tawdriness in connection with il
than with humming bird. IN. X.