ROMANCE OF THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8134, 14 June 1906, Page 4

ROMANCE OF THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.

As a mutter of course, any number of; wonderful and >ens >ll mal stories h:|ve been set ailoai cuiiecrning the Spanish marriage. Some have done duty many times before, ;i ni few have the ring of probability, bat one little fairy talo is so pretty that it will bear repetition withuut loj close an inquiiy as to its veracity, especially as quite a 1 majority of Kin 0 < .1 Hour's poorer subjects belieye m it implicitly. A little while before his visit to the Continent, his Majesty enco: ntcred .in old Gipsy woman whose,.face m erestcd luni, and he would have giyrn her money, but she proudly refused it. " King," she said, " keep your money. My race is older than yours. lam the last of the Almoravidi, who reigned in Morocco and the'SoutJj of Spain in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. I will give you this piece of gold." So saying, the Gipsy placed in Aiiojiso'-. hand a coin with the efligy of Ish ijj, sou of Tachefin, and the last King of the line of Almoravidi, who die lin Ui-7. "Preserve this talisman v .letu.ly," die warned .the young monarch, "it will shield you from peril. " There exists but one :;i n'lar coin. I gave, it to a good and beautiful maiden wlio one day ridj past me just as I had fallen into a ditch, and received serious injury to the head. She dismounted from her horse and bound up the wound with her handkerchief. Those who we'hssvkh her called her ' Highness.' King, if you marry, do not wed any save this girl. She alone can make you happy." J'„i. s charming legend spread throughout Spain, and many assert positively thai at the moment of the boinb explosion twelve months ago in the Kue do Kivoli, Paris, Alfonso XIIJL held the coin in his hand, being in the very act of showing it to President Loubel, and that this fact accounts for both escaping injury. It has yet to be ascertained whether the King or his Queen had the coins on their person last Friday. In any ease they appear to have had a charmed life. It is further related that while in England the King discovered that it was Princess Ena who possessed the companion coin Hence the wedding, and all the romance eounccted with it. Needless to add, the romantic Spaniards would mveh prefer that all this should be true, and would dislike a contradiction intensely.