Most of the peasant girls in the vicinity of Spanish cities contrive to keep a bit of flower-garden for their own personal purposes. She is a thriftless lass indeed, who has not at least one fragrant double red rose in tending, or some other red-flowered shrub. From Christmas on through the spring fête-days of the Church, they reap their tiny harvests. During this season every Spanish man and woman who can, wears a red flower in button-hole or over the ear, and the streets are thronged with bareheaded, black-tressed peasant and gypsy flower-venders. Flowers are a part of the daily marketing, and two or three centimos—a centimo is one fifth of a cent—suffice to buy a fresh nosegay. New Year’s is a marked fête in Seville, as then “The Old Queen” in the Alcazar rides out in state, the Alameda is thronged with carriages, and the whole populace is a-blossom with red.

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