It was scarcely light when Mildred rose to visit the palace of her childhood's dream. It seemed almost wicked to sleep with such delights awaiting her. Aunt Janet was much less in a hurry to leave her couch; still, as she was not less imbued with the spirit of the enchanting place, she soon followed her niece into the grounds. When we have longed all our lives to visit some celebrated scene, the first impression, on finding our hopes at length realized, is often one of disappointment. The imagination in some minds paints in colours of such "rainbow substance" that reality can never equal; but it has often been remarked that no one has been disappointed in his expectations of the Alhambra. Here he is in the scenery of the Thousand and One Nights itself, and if he is of the least romantic order of intellect, will be filled with more poetic reflections than can be supplied by any other place in Europe. Long before the gates were opened for visitors, the ladies had walked round the venerable walls, had visited Charles V.'s incongruous palace, and drunk in some of the inspiration of the lovely scene. When they returned to the hotel to breakfast, they found the doctors awaiting them with tickets for the Generalife, which they were to visit after the Alhambra.
What a day was this to Mildred! How she wished she could have some of her English friends with her, as she imbibed such stores of beautiful recollections! Mr. Crowe was very attentive, and was full of learned lore about the builders of the place. He praised the Moors so much that he seemed to lament that they had been expelled from Spain, and it required all Dr. Graves' chivalrous devotion to the memory of Isabella to defend the conquest.
"But you must not forget, Crowe, that your beloved Moors were in their decadence when their expulsion came; their luxury and over-refinement had drawn attendant evils in their train, and these brought about their ruin when attacked by a people like the Spaniards--then, as you must admit, in every way superior to their foes, or they could never have united all Spain under their sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella."
But Mr. Crowe could not forgive the Spaniards for having too much religion and too little science; and maintained that in both respects they were considerably the inferiors of the Moors whom they had dispossessed.