190 CASTILIAN DAYS
It has been ever since a most tempting summer-house to all the Bourbons. When the sun is calcining the plains of Castile, and the streets of Madrid are white with the hot light of midsummer, this palace in the clouds is as cool and shadowy as spring twilights. And besides, as all public business is transacted in Madrid, and La Granja is a day's journey away, it is too much trouble to send a courier every day for the royal signature,--or, rather, rubric, for royalty in Spain is above handwriting, and gives its majestic approval with a flourish of the pen,--so that everything waits a week or so, and much business goes finally undone; and this is the highest triumph of Spanish industry and skill.
We had some formal business with the court of the regent, and were not sorry to learn that his highness would not return to the capital for some weeks, and that consequently, following the precedent of a certain prophet, we must go to the mountain.
We found at the Estación del Norte the state railway carriage of her late majesty,--a brilliant creation of yellow satin and profuse gilding, a bovidoir on wheels,--not too full of a distinguished
THE PALACE, LA GRANJA
A CASTLE IN THE AIR 191