The circus trailed away its bedraggled magnificence, and the ring was cleared for the bull.
Then the sun seemed to come out and work for the people.

"See," said the Spaniards, looking up at the glorious sky with its great, white fleets drawn off upon the horizon--"see--heaven smiles upon the bull-fight!" In the high upper seats of the rude amphitheatre sat the gayly-decked wives and daughters of the Gascons, from the _metaries_ along the Ridge, and the chattering Spanish women of the Market, their shining hair un-bonneted to the sun.

Next below were their husbands and lovers in Sunday blouses, milkmen, butchers, bakers, black-bearded fishermen, Sicilian fruiterers, swarthy Portuguese sailors, in little woollen caps, and strangers of the graver sort; mariners of England, Germany, and Holland.

The lowest seats were full of trappers, smugglers, Canadian _voyageurs_, drinking and singing; _Americains_, too--more's the shame--from the upper rivers--who will not keep their seats--who ply the bottle, and who will get home by and by and tell how wicked Sodom is; broad-brimmed, silver-braided Mexicans, too, with their copper cheeks and bat's eyes and their tinkling spurred heels.

Yonder, in that quieter section, are the quadroon women in their black lace shawls--and there is Baptiste; and below them are the turbaned black women, and there is--but he vanishes--Colossus.
The afternoon is advancing, yet the sport, though loudly demanded, does not begin.