54< EXCURSIONS IN MADEIRA 



had so much enjoyed at Funehal. A chapel close to the house, 

 still gave Donna Anna a control over the fetes of the village, and 

 I could not help wishing she would occasionally visit this neg- 

 lected spot, although I could not exactly say what pleasure a lively 

 elegant woman, the soul of Portuguese society, should find there : 

 indeed, it seemed cruel to wish her to bury herself for a moment 

 at St. Vicente, merely from my formal antiquarian sort of respect 

 for her ancestry, when I knew from experience that every party 

 would be incomplete, if not dull, without her. AVhen the only 

 living representative of a family is a charming woman, to whose 

 society and accomplishments we have been indebted for many 

 pleasant hours, it is impossible to visit the remote and neglected 

 residence of her forefathers, without conjuring up a thousand 

 delightful forms, as we sit alone in the gloomy sala, watching 

 the setting sun through the cobwebs of a shattered window. The 

 ruins of the family chapel spirit up a vision of the old Padre 

 receiving the artless confessions of a train of blushing beauties, 

 whom we have lived just too late to know. The father too, no 

 doubt} was hospitable ; the mother, kindness itself; we feel deter- 

 mined to admit no unpleasant shade into the picture : the priest 

 was more cheerful, the wine was better, for the grapes were less 

 neglected ; the cedar roofs re-echoed with guitars, and there was 

 not a dance once a year, as there may be now, but every evening. 

 Darkness rouses us for a moment from our reveries, as if to suggest 

 that they might lead to still more pleasing dreams. The fettor or 

 steward, however, thought a Uvely interlude would be as well 

 between the waking vision, and the dream of departed forms, and 

 served up a capital soup, a fat fowl, a plate of oranges, and a bottle 

 of wine, before he strewed the bed on the floor, placing a wax 

 candle by the side of it, which I suspect he borrowed from the 

 church, and which the rats devoured before five o'clock in the 

 morning. 



