And stand you in a niche."
The average Spaniard is well satisfied with his señora as she is. He did her extravagant homage as a suitor, he treats her with kindly indulgence as a husband, but he expects of her a life utterly bounded by the casa. "What is a woman?" we heard one say. "A bottle of wine." And those few words tell the story why, with all their charm, home-love, and piety, the Spanish women have not availed to keep the social life of the Peninsula sound and sweet.
"But to admire them as our gallants do,
'Oh, what an eye she hath! Oh, dainty hand!
Rare foot and leg!' and leave the mind respectless,
This is a plague that in both men and women
Makes such pollution of our earthly being."
The life of the convent is attractive to girls of mystic temperament, like the Maria of Valdés, but many of these lively daughters of the sun regard it with frank disfavor. One of the songs found in the mouths of little girls all over the Peninsula is amusingly expressive of the childish aversion to so dull a destiny.
"I wanted to be married
To a sprightly barber-lad,