DAWN in a garden of Andalusia.... To the south, across the Straits of Gibraltar, the faint purple outlines of the Atlas Mountains mark the mysterious coast of Africa. To the north, beyond the green vega, four ranges of clear cut Sierras Gazoulos rise, one behind the other, from gray, vaporous valleys of mist. The only sounds are the rhythmic breaking of waves on the beach; the short breathing of a herd of goats—black, tawny, and white, with coarse hair and fierce, yellow eyes, and the crisp crunch, crunch of their teeth cropping the roadside grass. The night flowers hang their heads and go to sleep, the day flowers lift their faces to the sun; the smell of heliotrope drenched in dew is an unforgetable thing. Breakfast is memorable, too; dates from Morocco, and rich Spanish coffee flavored with cinnamon, served under an arbor of Marechal Neil roses.

So began our first day in Spain, at a place the Romans called Portus Albus, and the Moors—they settled here soon after landing on Gibraltar, Jezirat-I-Kadra—“the green island.” Can you derive the modern name of Algeciras from that? You must. Our old friend Tarik was here,—witness the great aqueduct he built, that still brings Algeciras his royal gift of water, always the legacy of Roman or of Moor.

To-day, Gibraltar is England’s key to the Mediterranean; yesterday, Algeciras was the Moors’ key to Spain. They held the Peninsula seven hundred years, think of it!—nearly twice as long as white men have held America; then it was wrenched from them, the door was locked against them. Less than three hundred years ago our ancestors landed on Plymouth Rock, but how should we, in New England, feel if the Indians, the Mexicans, or the Canadians rose up and drove us out of our stately cities, our green pastures, our fertile wheat fields? The Moors made a brave stand at Algeciras—it was their last ditch—and put up a good fight here. In the year 1344, the town was besieged by Alonzo XI of Castile, with the help of crusaders from every part of Christendom. The siege lasted twenty months. Chaucer, writing forty years later, describes a true knight as one who “had fought at Algecir,” as we might say of one of ThermopylÆ’s Three Hundred or of Balaclava’s Six Hundred. In 1760, four hundred years afterwards, the Spanish King, Charles III, rebuilt and fortified the place, “to be a hornet’s nest against the English.” For one hundred years Gibraltar and Algeciras—now deadly places, both of them bristling with guns, full of dynamite—have glowered at each other across the bay. The other day the English came again to Algeciras. Armed this time with British capital, they have built one of the hotels of the world here, and called it the Reina Maria Cristina, as a compliment to the Spanish Queen Mother.

“We did not expect to find such a fine hotel in Spain,” I said to the capable English manageress.

“Ah, well! we hardly count this as Spain, you know!” she answered, with a fine insular contempt for all things “foreign.”

“She’s right!” cried Patsy. “Por Dios. Shall we never get out of England?” and willy-nilly he carried us off to lunch at Don Jaime’s fonda, in the old part of the town.

The Don was waiting for us on a bench outside the inn door, smoking his inevitable cigarette, in the soft spring air. He looked a little bleary about the eyes, as if he had not had enough sleep.

“Don Jaime is up early to-day for our sake,” Patsy explained; “as he goes to bed at four in the morning, he does not usually appear before two in the afternoon.”

“The morning is a disease,” said the Don. “I find it best not to go out until the day is well aired.”

“Please observe,” Patsy interrupted, “that this place has a proper odor of garlic; at last we are out of the smell of English roast beef!”

The Don sighed. “Nevertheless, I comfortably recall the roast beef we had at school in Stoneyhurst,” he said; “it was rare, with plenty good, red gravy.”

“That was all right in England; we’re in Andalusia now. Let’s begin with an olla, then a dish of rice, saffron, pimientos, and little birds,—and wine from that fattest wineskin. I counted ten of them outside in the road, leaning jovially together against the wall of the fonda.”

When he got his wine from the “fattest wineskin”—it tasted a little of the “leather botelle”—Patsy raised his glass.

“We will drink,” he cried, “to everything Spanish, muchachas, ollas, dons, torrones, and fondas, and confusion to all interlopers. Isn’t this jolly little place better than the Maria Cristina? Isn’t the company more friendly and far more diverting? See the notary and the doctor at the table near the door; at the next, the priest and the professor (they’re both taking snuff); that fat, military man with the green gloves is a colonel of infantry. Those swell English officers you admired so much at the Reina Cristina simply own the hotel! We’re admitted to the smoking and billiard rooms purely on sufferance. I like your inn best, Don Jaime.”

“Ah, well,” said the Don, “I like bath every morning, and all that luxushness when I stayed at the Reina, though it was much pain to put on cocktail coat every night for dinner.”

“Treasure every gem of speech he lets fall,” murmured Patsy, “they grow rarer—don’t you notice?—as his English comes back to him.”

“He’s always been like that,” said J., “it’s because he learned English when he was young.” “Some days he speaks as well as you or I, then again he talks a hodge podge no man can understand.”

“What’s the matter with the wine, Don?” cried Patsy. “You don’t like it.”

“Wine is not agreeable to my belly,” said the Don. “I will take to keep you company, un poco de ginebra, de campaÑa, with much water.”

“You must not expect ice,” Patsy explained.

“You will not hanker for it,” said the Don, taking a clay water bottle from the shelf behind him. “This alcarraza is—how you say? holey—no, porous, keeps water as cold as you might drink him, by evaporation.” He poured out the water and put the alcarraza back. It had a rounded bottom and could not stand upright. The Romans used the same kind of vessel; you see them at Pompeii. They were made in this shape because they were used to pour libations of lustral water to Vesta, and would have been defiled if they had been set down on the ground.

By this time the fruit was put on the table. All the other guests had left the room except the priest and the professor, who were playing a game of dominoes. A large melon was placed before J. He looked at me as he cut it:

“You remember what I have always said? Till you come to Spain it is impossible to know what a melon can be.”

“No earthly melon can taste as good as this one smells,” said Patsy. “It is as if all the spices of Arabia had been let loose in this room!”

The servants had withdrawn, the clatter of the dishes had ceased. Some one opened a window; from the garden came the music of a guitar played by a master hand, a man’s voice singing a song of Andalusia:

(They have told me thou art to wed, so people say; all shall be in one day, thy marriage and my death.)

Don Jaime’s thimbleful of gin and his two cups of black coffee—he ate scarcely anything—had waked him up wonderfully. He smoked, with my permission, between the courses throughout lunch, flicking the ash from his cigarette with the phenomenally long nail of his little finger; his hands were white, handsome, and exquisitely kept. Lunch over and the serenade finished, Don Jaime settled his old black sombrero jauntily on the side of his head, buttoned up his threadbare coat—its darning was a work of art—and declared himself ready to show us the town.

“You would like to paint it red, wouldn’t you?” said Patsy.

“White better is suited to that climate,” said Don Jaime. His slang was current in the England of the sixties, and he took ours literally, but he laughed buoyantly because Patsy laughed.

Algeciras is a clean, pretty town, with neat, whitewashed houses, handsome iron gratings to doors and casements, and curious metal gargoyles and gutters painted green. Here and there from a window, or, in the more important houses, from a balcony like a small grated out of doors boudoir, leaned a handsome Algeciras girl, her dark, smooth hair beautifully dressed, with a bright flower worn over the middle of the forehead,—a pink rose, a white camelia, or one of the gorgeous red or yellow carnations one must come to Andalusia to see. We walked in the alameda, a well laid out promenade, with neat little gardens, each with a small pavilion on either side. We loitered in the city square, admired its beauties, and the handsome uniforms of the smart, well set up Spanish officers, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes outside the more fashionable cafÉs.

“MirÉ (look)! this is the bull-fighters’ cafÉ,” said Don Jaime, as we turned into a side street, “and there is Bombito, the first matador in Spain. He has come down from Madrid for the bull-fight to-morrow.”

An open door gave a glimpse of a tawdry interior with large mirrors, red plush seats, and atrocious decorations. At a table near the window sat the matador, a magnificently built man, with a frank, open face and a courageous eye. He was dressed in Andalusian costume,—a short, close-fitting coat like an Eton jacket, red sash, very tight trousers, wide-brimmed hat of hard gray felt. His hair, tied in a cue, was turned up under his hat; his full ruffled shirt was fastened by large diamonds; a superb cabuchon ruby burned on his finger. Around him sat a group of aficionados, the fancy, the young bloods of Algeciras. As we passed, Bombito, looking up, recognized Don Jaime. The matador smiled and nodded, and the aficionados turned to see the fortunate man to whom Bombito waved his hand.

“Spain at last, Spain of the songs I have sung, the pictures on fans and guava boxes I have collected,” Patsy burbled joyously.

“Quando los matadores matan en la corrida, van a la plaza bonitas con flores y abanicos.” (When the matadors are killing in the bull ring, come the pretty girls with flowers and fans.)

Not far from the plaza, as we were passing a house of quality, with seraphic green gargoyles, Don Jaime halted and looked sharply across the way. A correct young man, in a rakish gray sombrero, stood at the opposite corner waiting, not loitering like us; it was evident that he was here with a purpose.

“Behold the novio!” said the Don; “I feared he dead or married.”

Patsy asked who the gentleman with the varnished boots might be, who was gazing at an upper window with a white blind; he, apparently, did not see us. The Don explained that he was a novio (fiancÉ) haciendo el oso (doing the bear). He had heard it said that every afternoon, for five years, this faithful lover had stood outside the window of his beloved for exactly three hours!

“Is he mad?”

“Is love lunatics? Then must be vasty, crazy palaces by all Spain. He follow one antique custom, what we call ‘cosas de EspaÑa.’”

Sunset found us far from the town on a lonely path skirting the coast. We looked through the ragged, blue cactus hedge at the beautiful view; watched the flame kindle and flash out from the lighthouse on Isla Verde; the ferry boat, Elvira, pass on her last trip from Gibraltar to Algeciras. A few steps further on the path brought us out upon a bold headland where, out of sight of the town, an old house sloughed and sagged on its foundations. A large fig tree grew on one side of the porch, a cork tree on the other; a tame lamb lifted its head from nibbling the grass and bleated a long “ba-a-a.”

“Picturesque, isn’t it?” said Patsy. His gaze, idly roving over the landscape, concentrated and grew intent as the door opened, and a girl in a red dress, with a yellow handkerchief over her head, came out of the old house. It was as if a rough oyster shell had opened and shown the perfect pearl it held.

“I say, don’t you think it wicked to be so handsome?” groaned Patsy.

With a light, graceful step the girl walked to the edge of the cliff. A straggling path led down to the beach where an old, patched boat lay on its side. On a shelf of clean sand, below a tiny, ill-kept kitchen garden, lay an elderly man dressed in good black clothes—it was Sunday. The girl, evidently his daughter, called him to come in, the sun had gone down, he would catch cold. The old fellow obstinately refused to move; he was very comfortable where he was. Then, seeing us, he scrambled to his feet:

“OlÁ, olÁ! Engerlish, Engerlish!” he hailed us gleefully, waving an arm over his disreputable head. Two grave men of his own class, who passed at that moment, reproved him sternly, but he was in the incorrigibly merry stage and continued to wave and shout:

“Engerlish, Engerlish! How much? Very dear, goddam.”

“This is my third visit to Spain,” said J., “and that is the first drunken man I have seen even here.”

“Claro,” said Don Jaime, “we are not afflict with that vice of drunkenness.”

A rusty brown water spaniel, lying near the old drunkard, rose, yawned, stretched itself fore and aft, and sniffed at Patsy’s boots.

“Notice where the hair is worn off his back?” Patsy murmured, taking a burr out of the dog’s long, flapping ear. “A strap has done that—a strap, I suspect, that fastens together two little water-tight kegs filled with tobacco from Gibraltar. Smuggler! Is the old fellow your partner? Where’s the entrance to the smuggler’s cave? Don, we’ve discovered a contrabandista’s den!”

“May be!” laughed Don Jaime.

The spaniel lost interest in us and sat down to search for fleas. The girl had persuaded her father to come indoors. She supported him as he staggered towards the house.

“I’m off; it must mortify her to have us see him.” Patsy strode ahead; we followed. Soon the fierce, prickly blades of the blue cactus hid the house from view.

“A pretty gel, not?” was the Don’s comment.

“I wonder what her name is?” said Patsy. “Dolores, Pepita? It was worth the price of the journey just to see her face!” He was silent during the rest of the walk, keeping well ahead of us and singing snatches of an old song:

We left Algeciras before daylight for Ronda. If the Spaniard sleeps late at home, on his travels he must be an early bird,—the trains all seem to start between midnight and cockcrow. Don Jaime remained behind. Some night, he explained, when he felt particularly fit, he would omit going to bed; otherwise he must pass all his life in Algeciras; to get up in time for that hobgoblin train was not possible.

Across the bay we could make out the faint silhouette of Gibraltar against the ashen sky, a black lion asleep under the pallid day-star. The swift-coming dawn little by little transformed it to a gray lion dormant on an amethyst sea. Long after the great caved mountain was lost to sight, a distant growl shook the air.

“Morning gunfire at the Rock,” said Patsy, “that’s the last we shall hear of the British Lion for some time.”

Sunrise came while we were in the heart of a dark forest. The hoary old trees had mighty, wide-spreading boughs, covered thick with small, gray-green leaves like the ilex; the trunks were old and frail—some of them mere hollow shells that might have housed a dryad or a satyr. They stood well apart from each other, the undergrowth and dead wood carefully trimmed away from their roots.

“See how well cared for the forest patriarchs are,” said Patsy. “They must be kept alive as long as possible, like some old people, because they are the main support of the community.”

Gold-tipped arrows of sunlight now began to pierce the thick green shadows of the forest, and striking the old trunks and the heavy lower branches brought out their wonderful tints.

“Look at those gorgeous rainbow trees! See the colors,—mother of pearl, carmine, violet, lavender,—what does it mean?” I cried.

It meant, I found, that this was the cork forest, and that the bark of the cork trees had lately been cut. Those rainbow colors soon fade, however, like the pink and white complexion of youth.

At the next station stood many cars laden with rough cork.

“The coarse, outer layers are used for fishing nets and life preservers. To even things up,” Patsy explained, “they keep the fine, inner pinkish layers to bottle up those two great life destroyers, the drugs and liquors of the world.”

The way now led over the Sierra Rondena, through the wildest, most beautiful part of Andalusia; past thickets of gum cistus, covered with glorious, golden-hearted, white blossoms; across green vegas enamelled with clumps of amber gorse; through waves of daisies, white and yellow, regiments of scarlet poppies marching through the pale green wheat, multitudes of cornflowers, morning glories, and ruby-headed alfalfa, king of all the handsome clover tribe. In this company of old friends a stranger flower stooped through the fields, half drooping, half mourning, a purple hood pulled over its head almost hiding the small blue bells hanging from the bending stalk. In that holiday crowd it looked like a hooded monk, a purple penitente at a carnival. I could never learn its true name, so we called it the Spanish Friar....

“Lift thine eyes, oh, lift thine eyes to the mountains, whence cometh help!” sang Patsy.

Intoxicated with the flower feast, the way had brought us within sight of the distant Sierras without our being aware. The mountains came to meet us, nearer, nearer; then, all at once, we were in their midst; the tall blue peaks came crowding all about us. As the engine panted “up, up” the mountain pass, the way crossed a flashing mountain torrent leaping down, down to the vega and the sea beyond; it looked more like a river of emeralds and snow than mere green water and white foam.

“Andalusia, once Vandalusia, named for the Vandals, who tarried here before their wild dash across the Alps down into Italy. Andalusia, ‘ultima terrÆ’ of the ancients, the uttermost parts of the earth, where good old Jonah longed to flee, small blame to him,” Patsy maundered on, sleepily giving us bits of guidebook information.

“Andalusia, Vandalusia, Vandalusia, Andalusia.” The wheels sang it like a lullaby. “Anda——”

“Ronda, Ronda!” cried the guard. We rubbed our eyes, snatched our belongings, tumbled out of the compartment to the platform, and almost into the arms of the Sibyl of Ronda, patiently waiting for us there, like Fate. She was a tiny old woman, draped like a Tanagra statuette, in veils of soft, rusty black: her face was like a damask rose that has withered on its stalk; the eyes alone, diamond bright, were young, full of fire. With a tremulous hand she offered J. a box of matches. An officious young man, with oiled hair and a green cravat, pushed her rudely aside. She was not to trouble the gentlefolk, responsibility for whose welfare in Ronda he assumed. Was he not the “offeecial” guide? Did he not speak English?

“We can speak English ourselves, and we don’t want a guide,” J. interposed. “We want a philosopher and friend. If we must have somebody to toot us about, I vote we take the Sibyl.”

“What? Prefer an old thing like that to an active young man like me?” The official guide was incredulous!

“Isn’t she a little old?” I ventured.

“Did you ever see handsomer wrinkles? They are perfectly classic,” said J.

“And the twinkle in her eye!” Patsy supported him. “Wrinkles and twinkles against stall-fed guidebookery? The old girl for me. She’s over eighty, she says; she was born in Ronda; has lived here all her life. She must know more about it than that Algerine pirate with the emerald tie. Past eighty, you said, didn’t you?”

“Ochanta dos; perro en Ronda los ombres a ochanta son pollones,” the Sibyl answered. I am eighty-two, but in Ronda men of eighty are only chickens.

“I understand her Spanish!” cried Patsy. “That settles it; sealed to the Sibyl! I’ll go bond she will let us in for something worth seeing.” As usual, Patsy and J. had their way, and the active young man, angry and chapfallen, watched us with a sinister look, as we pottered slowly along beside the Sibyl. Our guides were mostly chosen for beauty, or charm. On the whole the plan worked well enough.

The Romans showed their usual colossal common sense in choosing the site of Arunda. Rome always was the model city they kept in mind. Three things, they rightly held, were necessary to a city; a not too distant view of mountains, to uplift the soul of the citizen; a fine climate to stimulate his body; a river for boys to swim and fish in, and for men to traffic by. When they found this high, fertile plain shut in by an amphitheatre of mountains, with one lone hill in the midst, surrounded and cut in halves by a rushing river, they built their city of Arunda on the cleft, river-girt rock we call Ronda. The Moors, who cleverly dovetailed their towns and their civilization into what Rome left, built their town of Ronda with the ruins of Arunda. We found remains of both Roman and Moorish walls. The modern town, built by the “Catholic Kings,” Ferdinand and Isabel, is remarkable chiefly for the wonderful view from the alameda. You look down a sheer six hundred feet to the green vega, and the turbulent river Guadelevin fretting and fuming below. After roaring and raging through the Tajo, the deep chasm that divides Ronda, the river tumbles with a series of mad leaps and bounds to the plain beyond. Cutting a few antics with eddies and whirlpools, Guadelevin finally gets himself in hand, and goes soberly to work; turns the wheels of the old Moorish mills, makes flour for Ronda, as the Moors taught him to do; lends his strength to a new labor, for, marvel of marvels, old Moorish Ronda is lighted by electricity. In summer, when the river shrinks to a mere thread, its waning power is carefully husbanded and the water is led by pipes to do its work. Water, always water, alpha and omega of civilization! No town that could not be well supplied with water from the snowy Sierras or from some mountain lake was ever founded by Roman or Moor. Their wisdom is clearer now than ever before. What city prospers, lacking the Siamese twins of successful manufacture, water power, and electricity?

A flock of evil-looking birds hovered over a lonely thicket of tamarisks, close by the foot of the wall.

“From there,” said the Sibyl, pointing to the tamarisks, “they throw the dead horses over the walls, after the bull-fights. The vultures soon pick their bones!” Grrrr! The ugly word spoiled the lovely view.

The Sibyl lived in the old, Moorish part of the city, that is called the Ciudad. She led us through the steep, narrow streets, pointing out the show houses. Here lived the grim Moorish king, Almoneted. He drank his wine from the skulls of enemies whose heads he had cut off, made into goblets, and inlaid with splendid jewels. Patsy, in his rococo Spanish, wondered if Almoneted had hoped to inherit the courage that once flashed from the sockets he stopped with emerald and ruby. The Sibyl twinkled all over at his suggestion.

“Claro,” she said, “it was doubtless his idea.”

She showed us the Mina, an underground staircase of three hundred and sixty-five steps, one for every day in the year, like the churches in old Rome, leading down to the river. It was built so that, in case of siege, Ronda should not be cut off from water. Moorish caution! The Romans of Arunda apparently never contemplated such a possibility. The houses of the Ciudad are oriental in character, with blank, whitewashed walls, and rare, grated windows; they are all built to look as much alike as possible, in order to avoid attracting attention. The doors are the only distinguishing feature; all of them are massive, and built for defence; some are of walnut, some of oak, iron barred, iron bound, studded with bronze bosses or brass ornaments. Oh, redoubtable doors of old Ronda! What stores of wealth, what moons of beauty did you guard for the jealous Moors that made you?

The Sibyl understood all Patsy meant but could not say. The moment their eyes met, flash, flash, a secret code was established between them. Thanks to her, one of those mysterious doors was opened to us, and we saw the interior of one of those old Moorish houses, whose key, perhaps, is treasured by some Moor of Morocco to-day, for when they were driven back to Africa, the Moors took the keys of their houses in Andalusia and Granada with them, against the day they should return and reclaim their lost paradise. These keys have been handed down from generation to generation; some of them hang to-day in the Moorish houses of Tangiers and Tetuan.

When we were tired with much sightseeing, the Sibyl hospitably took us home to rest. In the patio of her house we found enchanting Moorish columns with slender shafts, and capitals that must have been copied from the Corinthian capitals the Romans used so much in Spain, only these are lighter and less formal, and have more feeling of the lovely form of the curling acanthus leaf. The patio, a survival of the Roman atrium, is an open court in the middle of the house, surrounded by a roofed corridor, where, during the warm weather, the life of an Andalusian family centres. In the Sibyl’s patio stood an old Moorish well with an Arabic inscription. I cast longing eyes at it.

“Whatever you see,” said J., “admire nothing that can be carried off by the modern Vandals, who have looted Italy and are looting Spain. If you do, she’ll sell it.”

“The old Vandals were a decent lot in comparison,” Patsy agreed. “History has maligned them. If they did ‘lift’ a little property now and again, they, at least, left the owners the privilege of enjoying a virtuous indignation! These modern buyers, spoilers, barbarians, buy the victim’s consent, add ignominy to spoiliation!”

A pair of goldfinches gossipped about their housekeeping in a wattle cage hung near the old Moorish well. A lemon tree in a glazed earthenware pot (it had one green lemon) and some gorgeous double carnations, variegated dark red and yellow, planted in a petroleum can, stood close to the well where they could be easily watered. As she passed, the Sibyl pinched off a dead leaf with a touch that was a caress,—these were her growing things, this was her pleasaunce.

In the living-room, which was the kitchen, too, was a quaint, carved stone fireplace. On the balcony outside was a gilt iron grill, surmounted by a battered pomegranate “final,” sure some day to find its way into a “collection.” The house was clean, in spite of the horde of children it sheltered, the Sibyl’s great-grandchildren, for whose sake she sells matches at Ronda station.

The mother sat on a low stool rocking a wooden cradle with her foot; her hands were busy shelling garbanzoz, chickpeas, for the olla. Twin infants, lusty as Romulus and Remus, slept in the cradle; a pair of babes a size larger played with each other’s toes in a long, bath-shaped, wicker basket; a girl of five pretended to help her mother with the garbanzoz. As we entered, the mother rose, welcomed us with grave ceremony, offered us food and drink and assured us that this house and everything it contained was ours: “Esta muy a la disposicion de Vmd.” It is very much at your disposal, the pretty old phrase goes.

Her face was plain beside the Sibyl’s, time had etched every line there with an artist’s fine care, but she had the grace, the reserve, the proud bearing of the Andaluz that poets have praised before, and since, De Musset, whose Andaluz lived in Barcelona, and was a Catalan, after all. As the youngsters were very near of an age, when the mother offered to give us everything in sight I asked if she could spare a baby? She looked almost pretty as she unbent, smiled, patted the biggest, and answered, with a twinkle like the old woman’s, that there were none too many—indeed, that there were four more at school.

“Nine children, what a fine large family!” The Sibyl shrugged her shoulders, rolled up her eyes, and lifted a withered hand to heaven in protest.

“Granny doesn’t think it much of a family; she had seven boys and seven girls.”

“It is true,” the Sibyl nodded, and stroked her lean flanks with tremulous hands; “this,” she looked at her grandchild as if she expected great things of her, “is the seventh daughter of my seventh daughter.”

When, our visit over, we rose to take leave, spokesman Patsy produced the phrase from his vocabulary that he had been conning:

“Muchas memorias. Adios.”

The Andaluz put this aside as too final. “Hasta luego,” she said, with her slow, sweet smile,—“Till we meet again.”

“Vamos!” said the Sibyl, and showed the way to the door.

As we left the house of many children, we met a cavalcade of gay young people riding out of town. The men rode horses, the girls mules or donkeys. The woman’s saddle was curiously made with crisscross arms and a back like an armchair. They were evidently well to do farmer folk; all wore good clothes and were well mounted. Several of them had ruddy, northern complexions. The Sibyl laid this to the excellent climate,—“In Ronda, we do not know when it is summer,” she said. The last of the cavalcade to pass was a large, gray mule with as pretty a couple as you might see, seated on his broad back. We felt sure they were bride and groom. The man, a handsome fellow, full of the lust of life, sat very straight in saddle; the slim girl on the pillion behind, her arm about his waist, was full of bridal coquetries. She wore red stockings, a rose behind her ear, a lace-trimmed petticoat. An old, yellowish, time-worn guitar was slung over her shoulders by a cherry ribbon. As they rode past us, both young people smiled and nodded to the Sibyl.

“Your friends?” Patsy asked.

“My relatives.” Proud that we should see them, and that they should see us, her face kindled; so did Patsy’s. We all walked on through the tortuous Moorish calle with a lighter step, a braver heart for that chance meeting. It seemed as if we had caught some reflection of the hope, health, and love shining in their young faces.

“I play the guitar myself, after a fashion, not Spanish fashion, alack!” said Patsy. “Shade of Espinal! I won’t leave Ronda till I have had a lesson. He lived here, Espinal, who gave the fifth string, perfected the guitar, made it what it is—what it can be in a Spaniard’s hands.”

A tall, arrogant-looking priest, with head held high, passed at this moment and challenged us with the eye, as the British officer had challenged us at Gibraltar. It seemed that he was master here, as that other had been master on the Rock.

“If I were a priest of Ronda I should hold up my head,” said Patsy, “just because Espinal was a priest. He did other things worth doing beside giving us the fifth string: invented the decima, wrote a book, Marcus de Obregan, that’s read to-day, three hundred years after; translated Horace—a pleasant task—lived to be eight years older than the Sibyl, died at ninety, still in the ring, still fighting. I like Ronda; let’s buy a house and settle here!”

“Almoneted’s house for choice,” said J., and they began alloting quarters forthwith. The window with the north light should be the studio, the room on the courtyard far from noise, the library. In every town we visited, and they approved of, they made plans for passing the rest of our lives there.

The convent chapel smelt of lavender. The sunlight pouring through the rose window over the high altar was so strong that you saw tiny motes floating in the sunbeams. They could not have been dust, for the chapel was immaculate, a temple of purity from the worn marble flags under foot to the swinging silver lamps overhead, all freshly trimmed like the lamps of the wise virgins. The Virgin’s lace handkerchief was a triumph of clear starching. She was dressed in black and wore only a few of her jewels—the Sibyl said—because it was Lent; we should see her at Easter! The Virgin’s velvet dress was in the style of the sixteenth century; she wore a hoop, a ruff, and a long pointed bodice.

The Sibyl was not devout. She took the holy water to cross herself, mechanically, and made the most indifferent little duck for a courtesy as she passed before the altar. She looked with a cold eye on dear San Antonio di Padua, though he must be popular in Ronda, from the number of candles burning before him. Her indifference was in marked contrast to the piety of two freshly powdered young ladies, who were coming out of the chapel as we entered. They were of the great world; their combs and shoes were unquestionably from Paris.

“But the eyes, the eyes are Andalusian, and the torrents of black hair piled and puffed under those blessed black mantillas!” murmured Patsy, as they passed, smelling sweet of heliotrope and rice powder. The taller had a rosary of gold and pearls in her left hand, a fan in the right; the pearls slipped through her fingers, her lips moved; she was evidently “telling her beads.” As they passed the statue of Santa Teresa, both knelt and crossed themselves with extraordinary reverence.

“Remember what Don Jaime said,” Patsy reminded us; “that the common people of Spain take their religion very easily; everybody did when he was young, till the Queen Mother made it fashionable to be devote, when she came to Spain, bringing back the Jesuits and all the rest of them in her train. As a boy, the Don never remembers having seen a monk or a nun.”

In spite of her “indifference,” the Sibyl had held stanchly to her proposal that we should visit the convent where she had learned to sew and to embroider. Mass was just over, the priest had left the altar, the sacristan was snuffing out the candles. We had a glimpse of black veiled figures passing slowly behind the altar from one unseen chamber to another; they were followed by slighter, more lightly moving figures in white that flitted ethereally where the others walked solidly. Two by two they passed behind the altar with a noiseless step. When the last one had vanished, the priest and the sacristan disappeared into the sacristy, and we were left alone, with San Antonio and the other saints.

One end of the chapel was shut off by two heavy iron gratings, one behind the other. On the other side of the grill was a close-latticed screen, through which we could see a heavy, black curtain; the movement of the folds showed that we were being watched by some one on the other side of the triple barrier. After a short delay a novice slipped quietly into the chapel, a sprite of a girl with bright eyes and rosy cheeks, dressed in white serge and crisp linen. She asked us for “alms for the Holy Sacrament.” Patsy produced our offering. The little novice’s eyes opened roundly as her small red hand closed on the coin; she courtesied, so prettily, and flitted away as lightly as she came. As she passed the grill, she breathed some word of necromancy—it sounded like “blankichisserando.” Then, silently, the black curtain was withdrawn; we saw a stout red porteress with a bunch of huge keys in her hand, a key turned grudgingly in a rusty lock, a hinge squeaked, the lattice parted, the convent walls flew back! We had a glimpse of veiled figures flying helter skelter; then through the grim, double iron grating we looked into the sanctum sanctorum of the nuns. A long, lonely room with rows of uncomfortably narrow, high-backed benches and narrow tables, over which hung some good crystal chandeliers filled with wax candles. Though it shone with neatness, it was the most cheerless living-room imaginable. In the middle, close to the grating, stood a tall, graceful woman, who looked like a Vestal of ancient Rome. Her taper, aristocratic hands were folded in a clasp that suggested strength rather than meekness; her small head, finely set upon the shoulders, was held high and proudly.

“The Abbess wishes to speak with you,” whispered the Sibyl.

“How long,” asked the Abbess—her voice like a far away chime of silver bells,—“how long do you remain in Ronda?”

I said our stay was short, no one had told us how much there was to see in Ronda.

“There is but one Ronda in the world,” she said. The bells sounded nearer. The Sibyl nodded agreement. “It is the truth,” she murmured.

“You are of Ronda?” I made out to ask.

The Abbess shook her head, and answered with a splendid pride, “Soy hija di Granada” (I am a daughter of Granada), as if that were the proudest title in the world. There was more bronze than silver in the bells now.

“What is the work you do in the convent?”

“We pray for the entire world.” Her voice all silver again. Then, as an after-thought and of far less consequence:

“We have a school of needlework. Our embroidery is not unknown outside of Ronda; it has been heard of even outside of Spain.” I felt abashed that I had not heard of it.

“You will, perhaps, return to Ronda for the fair in May? Many strangers are here then. Should you come back we shall always be glad to see you at the convent.”

We felt that we were dismissed. I thanked the Abbess as best I could, in my halting Spanish, for her courtesy. She smiled a cold, holy smile; her last words were a benediction:

“Vayan Vds. con Dios!”

I had a glimpse of the little novice standing on tiptoe looking at Patsy over the Abbess’s shoulder, with round, bright eyes, then the black curtains drew noiselessly together, the stout red porteress shut the wooden lattice with a loud clang, and turned the protesting key in the lock. The cold beauty of the Abbess, the fresh comeliness of the novice, were hidden behind the triple barrier: curtain, lattice, and cruel iron bars in double rank. No outstretched hand from within that grating could ever touch another hand reaching to meet it from the other side.

“We shall come back to Ronda for the fair,” said Patsy, cheerfully, as he took leave of the Sibyl at the station. “If not this year, another year. The Abbess has invited us: mind that you are here to meet us at the train!”

The Sibyl smiled, a brave, old, withered smile, and waved her tiny, wrinkled hand:

“Hasta otra vista!”

She would do her best to keep the tryst!