Crossword-Solution: TOREADORS 9 letters, 8 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 10

For her three Toreadors had gone to death Or victory, the prize to be a kiss-- One kiss from those red lips of sweetest breath-- A longed-for touch of bliss! The features of the Spanish girl’s portrait have served so often as those of the courtesan in so many self-styled _poems_, that it would be tiresome to quote here the hundred lines of description.

The fete was started by professional toreadors: after they had exhibited their strength and skill, Alfonso and Caesar in their turn descended to the arena, and to offer a proof of their mutual kindness, settled that the bull which pursued Caesar should be killed by Alfonso, and the bull that pursued Alfonso by Caesar.

Then it was that warriors and nobles of mediæval days were seen strolling with mythological goddesses and out-of-date peasants of Italy and Spain; then audacious “toreadors” were perceived whispering in the ears of crowned queens, and clowns were caught lingering amorously by the side of impossible flower-girls of all nations.

Finding himself incapable of controlling the boiling transports of his anxiety, many a husband makes the mistake of coming home and rushing into the presence of his wife, with the object of triumphing over her weakness, like those bulls of Spain, which, stung by the red _banderillo_, disembowel with furious horns horses, matadors, picadors, toreadors and their attendants.

The apartment was almost dismantled; chairs lay backless about the floor amid china shepherdesses and toreadors; pictures were thrown over the sofa, and a huge pile of wax fruit--apples and purple grapes--was partially reflected in a large piece of mirror that had fallen across the hearthrug.