The archbishop of Toledo. 
A Cardinal. 
Beltran Cruzado Count of the Gypsies. 
Bartolome Roman A young Gypsy. 
The padre Cura of Guadarrama. 
Pedro Crespo Alcalde. 
Pancho Alguacil. 
Francisco Lara’s Servant. 
Chispa Victorian’s Servant. 
Baltasar Innkeeper. 
Preciosa A Gypsy Girl. 
Angelica A poor Girl. 
Martina The Padre Cura’s Niece. 
Dolores Preciosa’s Maid. 
Gypsies, Musicians, etc.

ACT I.

Scene I.—­The count of Lara’s chambers.  Night.  The count in his dressing-gown, smoking and conversing with don Carlos.

Lara.  You were not at the play tonight, Don Carlos;
How happened it?

Don C. I had engagements elsewhere. 
Pray who was there?

Lara.  Why all the town and court. 
The house was crowded; and the busy fans
Among the gayly dressed and perfumed ladies
Fluttered like butterflies among the flowers. 
There was the Countess of Medina Celi;
The Goblin Lady with her Phantom Lover,
Her Lindo Don Diego; Dona Sol,
And Dona Serafina, and her cousins.

  Don C. What was the play?

Lara.  It was a dull affair;
One of those comedies in which you see,
As Lope says, the history of the world
Brought down from Genesis to the Day of Judgment. 
There were three duels fought in the first act,
Three gentlemen receiving deadly wounds,
Laying their hands upon their hearts, and saying,
“O, I am dead!” a lover in a closet,
An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan,
A Dona Inez with a black mantilla,
Followed at twilight by an unknown lover,
Who looks intently where he knows she is not!

  Don C. Of course, the Preciosa danced to-night?

Lara.  And never better.  Every footstep fell
As lightly as a sunbeam on the water. 
I think the girl extremely beautiful.

Don C. Almost beyond the privilege of woman! 
I saw her in the Prado yesterday. 
Her step was royal,—­queen-like,—­and her face
As beautiful as a saint’s in Paradise.

Lara.  May not a saint fall from her Paradise,
And be no more a saint?

  Don C. Why do you ask?

Lara.  Because I have heard it said this angel fell,
And though she is a virgin outwardly,
Within she is a sinner; like those panels
Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks
Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary
On the outside, and on the inside Venus!