RODRIGO, Pemberton’s son, a grave child with eyes of brown fire, met us at the gate of the patio; by his side stood a white lamb, with a wreath of yellow primroses round its neck.

“You recognize the fleece of Huelva?” said Pemberton, “this is one of Miquel’s flock; every child must have its pet lamb at Easter, you know.” He opened the ancient iron gate,—the bars were lilies, tenderly wrought as if of a more precious metal,—and we passed through the Zaguan (vestibule) into the patio paved with marble, surrounded on all four sides by a corridor like a cloister. Behind the Moorish columns, graceful as palm trees, were walls lined with azulejos, blue, green, yellow glazed tiles of fascinating design, bewildering color. In the middle of the patio a jet of water leapt from an urn, danced in the sun, broke into a shower of living diamonds, fell laughing to a marble basin.

“In summer we practically live in this patio, that long bamboo chair is my favorite place. I lie there and read, or puzzle out the designs on those tiles,—they’re over a hundred,—and listen to the fountain and the birds. What more does a man want in hot weather? Take care, Rodrigo, don’t drown him!”

The child was trying to make the lamb drink; the gold fish darted from side to side in fright as its pink nose ruffled the water.

“We’re still living up-stairs; by Corpus Christi we shall have embajado, as they say here. That means, moved down-stairs. It’s the universal custom—the poorest house in Seville has two stories, the upper for cold weather, the lower for hot; you can’t fancy the difference in the climate. When moving day comes, the awning is drawn over the patio, we bring all the furniture from the upper to the lower rooms—exactly the same size and shape, so everything fits—hang pictures and mirrors in the corridor; put the piano here, the plants from the terrace there between the columns. We’ll have a look at the summer quarters, if you like; it may give you some idea of how we live in Seville in hot weather.”

We followed him through large, dark rooms, high-ceiled and airy; caught glimpses of a mighty marble bath in a cool green chamber, of a kitchen where they cook with charcoal, and finally halted in a place mysterious as an alchemist’s laboratory. There were cauldrons of beaten copper, measures for wet and dry, an antique balance with brass weights, strange glass vessels, a press, an old still. As we stood admiring a huge marble mortar, Concepcion came into the laboratory. She wore a short white dress and apron, and, on her chatelaine, a bunch of big keys.

“Always on time!” Pemberton exclaimed. “At half past nine every morning Concepcion unlocks the despensa, and gives out whatever is needed for the day.”

“The grapes for the agraz are pounded in that mortar,” said Concepcion, who saw I was interested in the strange vessels, “and those big stone rollers are used for crushing and grinding the chocolate.”

“Do you remember how good the smell of chocolate is, when they are making you a cup at home?” said Pemberton. “Imagine what it must be to have the whole house filled with it! Ah! the making of the chocolate is an important event. Rodrigo and I are always impatient for it to begin.”

“When the time has come to make the chocolate,” Concepcion went on, “the cacao is bought. It comes in great sacks,—the best from the Havana, cinnamon from Ceylon—being sure it is the most fresh—sugar the finest, and supreme vanilla. When all is ready, we call the chocolateros, two good men, who make the chocolate under my direction, according to a family recipe. When it all is finished, it is poured out into those large troughs to cool. Then it is cut in squares; each large square is just big enough to make a cup of chocolate for grown-up people; and the little squares to make the children’s chocolate. When hard, it is put away on these shelves; as the cupboard is airy it keeps itself for a year.” When she learned that some housekeepers bought their chocolate ready made, Concepcion was scandalized. “It will be mixed with flour of chestnuts, or other inferior things; there is no chocolate like the Andalusian!” she declared.

In the despensa, a cool, stone grotto, hams, sausages, dried herbs, onions, and scarlet peppers hung from the roof; a dozen bloated goatskins leant against the wall.

“The oil,” Pemberton explained, “was brought in from the farm on mule-back this morning. When it settles, we shall draw it off in those amphorÆ;” he pointed to a row of two-handled, red clay jars. “Those tarros are full of pork,—we killed a hundred pigs last November. The best of the meat is sent in town to us, the rest is kept at the farm for our work people; we feed our laborers in Andalusia, you know, and feed them well.”

Concepcion told us that she herself always gave out the day’s provisions; this was important, else disastrous things might happen. She stood by and saw cook take the pork from the tarro, where it was packed in the “butter of pig,” or the game from the smaller barrels. These lower ones were full of the partridges Pemberton shot last season; some days he got a dozen, some days twenty. Those that were not eaten or given away were slightly boiled and packed in the butter of pig. They would keep six months if great care were used in taking them out, and only the wooden spoon touched the pig butter. If, as had happened, a careless servant puts in her hand to take out a partridge or a bit of pork, the whole tarro is lost; nothing can save it from going bad. The same is true of olives, put up in those tall tinajas. Once a human hand,—a metal spoon is almost as bad,—is dipped into that home-made pickle of vinegar, water, lemon, salt, and laurel leaves, the whole tinaja is ruined.

“These nice comfortable-looking round jars are made especially to hold Manchegan cheeses,” said Pemberton. “They’re like Parmesan, only better, made of sheep and goats’ milk mixed. Once a year they bring them from La Mancha to sell; we always lay in a large stock; packed in those jars, with enough oil poured in to cover them, they keep indefinitely. Here is the cook. The momentous council of the day is about to open. Come, I’ll show you the rest of the house, while Concepcion gives the orders. We’ll have a look at the roses first.”

Behind the patio was a second court, with orange and lemon trees; at one end grew an ancient cedar with hollow trunk and strange roots, like splay feet, that gripped the earth. A whiff of orange blossoms, the tinkle of a guitar, the voice of an unseen singer chanting a low wailing malageÑa greeted us as we entered. The walls were a living glory of roses; the yellow Bankshires hung in starry bunches; the white rose vines flung out floating banners of green, thick sprinkled with rose snow. A golden pheasant strutted and preened itself in the sun; from an aviary came the chatter of a happy family of birds.

“Hijo de mi alma,” Pemberton said to Rodrigo, “you may not take the lamb up-stairs; stay with him till we come down.”

Rodrigo, nothing disappointed, drew out a little cart, and seating himself in it turned the wheels so that the cart slid along the stone path in the middle of the garden, the lamb trotting beside; back and forth, back and forth, we heard the rattling of those wheels (I can hear them still) as the lonely boy and the lamb played together.

“Did you ever see a game of football?” Patsy asked the child. Rodrigo had only seen pictures of football, but he had seen pelota, and he could hit the bull’s-eye with his arrow three times out of five.

“Rodrigo is a Spaniard; he is going into the army,” Pemberton said, as he led the way up-stairs to the winter quarters. “My grandmother was a Spaniard; my parents called themselves ‘cosmopolitans’; some other people called them disgruntled Americans. I’m a man without a country,—one of that kind is enough in a family!”

He flared up with sudden passion. To make a diversion J. complimented him on the winter parlor, a bare, comfortable room with a few good pictures, the necessary furniture and a refreshing absence of junk.

“No little tables of jointed silver fish and jade idols here?” he said. “We’re still half Orientals in Seville; we don’t suffer from the dreadful ‘too much’ that is stifling you in America!”

The winter kitchen, all white marble and tiles, had a gas range, the most modern thing in the house, and deal tables scrubbed with soap and sand till you saw the grain of the wood. Something was said about the exquisite neatness of the house.

“Andalusians,” Pemberton assured us, “are remarkably clean people. Did you notice our calle? You don’t often see a street so well kept. Each householder is obliged to take care of the part before his house; competition is a good principle in street cleaning.”

The upper corridor, giving access to the winter rooms, was shut in with glass; it led to the azotea, a terrace that overhung the court of roses. The flowers here had more sun and air than in the patio; the carnations were as big as coffee cups, the damask roses as large as saucers. A second flight of stairs led up to the winter bed and dressing-rooms.

“These mattresses are of carded wool,” said Pemberton; “the blankets,—feel how light and soft they are,—were made at the farm, spun and woven by an old woman, the last survivor of my grandmother’s servants. These sheepskins are spread under the mattresses for warmth, for tiled floors are cold. The fleece is of three years’ growth; see, it is as fine as silk.”

Laundry, drying-room, and terrace for bleaching and airing, were at the top of the house. The keen smell of good gum camphor met us on the stair; it came from a brass-bound cedar chest, standing open on the terrace. A dozen of Concepcion’s feather fans dangled from a line.

“Now that you’ve seen the house in Seville God has given me,” said Pemberton, “look at the view; it’s the best thing about it!”

Below us lay the city with its narrow calles, sunny plazas, shining houses. In every patio, on every terrace and roof garden were flowers and caged birds. The air was musical with bells, song, laughter. Outside the old Roman city walls, spread the green Andalusian vega, with the yellow river, gleaming, where the sun touched it, like clouded amber. In the distance the vega was shut in by a circle of blue Sierras; snow lay on the shoulders of the hills, at whose feet the fruit trees were in blossom.

“Can anybody ever be sad in Seville?” cried Patsy. “Do people ever die or grow old here? Are there such things as tears?”

“There is a young lady down-stairs who must have shed a quart of tears since yesterday,” said Pemberton. “Come and help Concepcion comfort her.” He led the way down to the drawing-room. Sitting beside Concepcion, whose hand she had been holding, was a pretty girl, wearing a dress much too large for her.

“Mi amiga, SeÑorita Trinidad Fulano,” Concepcion introduced her friend, who tried to look as if she had not been crying. Our hostess then bustled out of the room, and returned, followed by a neat maid with a tray of preserved sweet potatoes, some huevos dulces, a sort of sweetmeat made of sugar and yolk of egg, a delicate decanter, and a straw basket containing twelve long thin glasses no bigger round than a walking stick.

“A caÑa of manzaÑilla,” said Pemberton, pouring out a clear amber liquid. “It is light for Spanish wine, no headache in it.” Patsy, Concepcion and Trinidad were already chattering together like three magpies at the other end of the room. In the solemn silence that accompanied the tasting of the manzaÑilla, Concepcion’s voice rang clear.

“For a woman to call herself beautiful, she must possess the nine essentials of beauty. Three things must she have that be black,—the hair, the eyes, the lashes; three that be red,—the lips, the palms, the cheeks; three that be white,—the hands, the neck, and the teeth.”

Trinidad nodded. “Claro,” she said, “she has expressed it divinely.”

“Trinidad could hardly say less,” Pemberton observed, “seeing that she herself possesses the nine indispensables. That is a Moorish proverb, though Concepcion learned it from the nuns, like the saying that the sal a morena wastes in a minute would last a blonde a week and a half. It is a good thing you came in to-day; Trinidad is cheering up already. She has been tremendously harried—had a visit from an angry parent this morning, and a visit from a despairing lover last night. He stood in the calle outside her window, talking with her till past twelve o’clock. You see she’s en deposito with Concepcion.”

At this moment Concepcion glided across the room—she moved with that peculiar poetry of motion of the Spanish woman—and joined us.

“Trinidad is very distinguished, no?” This was always her highest praise. “And intelligent, and instructed; Ave Maria Purissima! she can speak three idioms.”

“You don’t understand what being en deposito means,” Pemberton went on, ignoring the interruption. “Having lately come of age, that is eighteen in Andalusia, Trinidad made application to a magistrate by means of an official document written and signed by herself stating that she wished to marry JosÉ Maria Benamiel; that her parents, with no sufficient reason, forbade the marriage; that——”

“Pobrecitos!” broke in Concepcion; “they have been making love these four years. He is a youth the most well-bred, the most distinguished——”

“Yesterday,” Pemberton continued, “the magistrate called on Trinidad’s father——”

“He came in a carriage,” Concepcion reminded him.

“And after a heated interview, took Trinidad away from her father’s house and brought her to ours. Here she will stay en deposito for three months. During this time, Concepcion is responsible for her. Trinidad is free to see Benamiel, always in the presence of some responsible third person, and her parents are free to visit her. They——”

“They are people the most egotistical, the most interested!” Concepcion burst out. “Can you imagine? they denied her clothes, por Dios! it is the truth: that is my dress she is wearing! who ever heard of so great a shame? Not one handkerchief allowed those hard-hearted ones their daughter to take away from their accursed house!”

“It is true, they all lost their tempers,” said Pemberton lightly, “and behaved foolishly. I fancy we shall see a portmanteau before night; between ourselves, Trinidad might very well have kept on the dress she came away in yesterday. It is not a bad system, the deposito; it gives time for both love and anger to cool off. The girl is out of coercion here; she has a chance to make up her mind whether or no Benamiel is really the man for her. At the end of the three months, if she still wants him, she may marry him without her parents’ consent.”

“Do you think she will?”

“Pretty safe to. The old people will give in; there is nothing really against Benamiel, only they preferred O’Shea! Small blame to them. O’Shea did not know that Trinidad and Benamiel had already settled things between them. When he found it out he went back to Cordova, where he is stationed, and, Trinidad says, wanted to give to Benamiel a bracelet he had bought for her. Nice boy, O’Shea. Why is it that the nice girls always take the wrong—well, there’s no use opening that chapter, if you must be going—it is time for your Spanish lesson—we’ll tackle it some other time when we have the night before us!”

Don Renaldo, the ex-ofeecial de marina, was waiting to give Patsy and me our lessons in vero Castellano. His method was simple; he talked, while we listened. He began by explaining his rusty mourning suit, as he drew off his worn old leather gloves. “It is the thirtieth anniversary of the death of my father,” he spoke slowly, so that we might follow him. “All the masses celebrated to-day in the church of San Sebastian will be applied to the repose of his soul.” Patsy said he would like to hear one of the memorial masses, but it was already too late, they were all over.

“He was the most kind of fathers, the most benevolent of men, his benevolence was the cause of all his misfortunes in this world! To oblige a friend he signed his name to a note, understanding that it was a mere form. With those two strokes of the pen he signed away his fortune.”

“He did not have a benevolent friend!” Patsy ejaculated.

“HombrÉ! He was a caballero, a gentleman of distinction—but—it is the truth, of business he was as ignorant as mi pobre papa! The catastrophe that ruined both, killed my papa; his friend died soon after of shame. Then Tio Jorge, my rich uncle, took me and brought me up as if I were his heir. Every year we went to Paris together; we lived with great elegance on the Rue de Rivoli; we had a box at the opera; I had my own carriage; my clothes came from Poole; at that time I was very elegant, and not, people said, bad looking. I am old now, but then!” He sighed and rolled up his eyes at the recollection of his elegant youth.

“You’re not old, you’re in the prime of life,” said Patsy. Though Don Renaldo was not even elderly, he had given up the fight, went shabby and unshaven, with buttons missing from his frayed shirt.

“Suddenly Tio Jorge had a stroke of apoplexy,—I was at Monte Carlo at the time. I hurried to his bedside and took all care of him till he died. It was very sad, but it was my duty to see everything done as he would have wished. His funeral was the most luxurious ever seen in Valladolid. He was followed to the grave by the aristocracy, civil and military authorities, and whole communities of monks and nuns. There was a multitude of carriages, and to every coachman I gave a propina of fifty pesetas. After the funeral the will was opened. Well, what do you think he left me?”

“That depends upon whether or not you were the only heir,” Patsy answered soothingly.

“He left me nothing! Money, palace, horses, plate, jewels, everything went to found a home for the widows and daughters of navy officers! the preference always to be given to the handsomest ones. The will was published; there followed ridicule the most painful from half the papers of Europe, from the Argentine, from all over the world. They called Tio Jorge a modern Don Juan Tenorio!”

“The old hunks deserved something worse than to be laughed at. I hope he’s getting it now,” murmured Patsy.

“May be—but that was not true; he was not an immoral man. He believed that beautiful ladies had greater difficulties to contend with than others.”

“He might have left you a life interest,” said Patsy; “the beautiful ladies could wait.” While Don Renaldo did not allow himself to criticise Tio Jorge, our sympathy was as balm to him.

“I gave up my home, I gave up Paris—where I was too well known. I had frequented the best society. I came to Seville where I have no friends, where many travelers come;” he dropped into English. “I offrÉ my service to accompany and visit monuments, gib lessons, recommend the hotels!”

“Everybody is bothered about money one way or the other;” Patsy tried to encourage him; “as long as you live, you either have got to earn the money you spend, or spend money that other people have earned. Brace up, Amigo! Think how much more fun it is to earn your own money than to spend money some other fellow has had the fun of earning!”

Don Renaldo looked steadily at him, groping for his meaning. “At first I envied people who have money,” he confessed; “now I envy those who have work that they enjoy.” He took up a book Patsy had told him was written by a friend of ours. “Your friend must be a very rich man.”

“He just makes the two ends meet without lapping!”

“How could he afford to print this book? The binding is elegant, paper, print and engravings, superior; it must have cost a great deal!”

“So the publishers say.”

“OjalÁ! If I could only write.”

Poor, pathetic soul, if he could only do any useful thing. A fortune had been spent on his education. He could ride and shoot straight, he could dance, and fence, and play every game under the sun, but his life investment yielded a small, precarious income. His only dividend-bearing stock, all that stood between him and starvation, was a passable knowledge of the French and English languages, part of the accomplishments of his elegant youth.

The lesson over, Don Renaldo gone, Patsy summed up his case. “A spent shot!” he said, “a poor thing, as capable of taking care of himself as a year old baby; more coals to Tio Jorge!”

One happy day, when we had almost given up hope of ever seeing him again, Don Jaime strolled jauntily into the patio, his sombrero gallantly cocked on one side, his worn coat carefully brushed, his trousers newly creased, a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. He was greeted with shrieks and screams of joy. Black coffee and un poco de ginevra de campagna (his only vices) were immediately ordered for him.

“I arrive only at middle night yesterday,” he said, when accused of desertion. “I have made a loose, my brother-in-law, he is daid.” Patsy asked if it was the husband of his sister who had died.

“Ah, no! brother to my woman. Me, my father, my grandfather were all unique childs; I have no sister—only a half a sister, Candalaria,—no brother, no honkle, no haunt; I am a widow and a horphan.” We expressed sympathy for his loss. The Don assured us that his brother-in-law’s death was a release.

“Poor man! he was secluded in—how you say? an insanitorium these long years. When he was daid, he had himself embaumed and transported to Cadiz, where is the pantheon of himself and his wife.”

“We were just starting to drive to Italica,” said J. “You’ll go with us, Don? Where’s your capa? You’ll need it; it’s cold this afternoon.”

“Ah, no! I am warm inside, since I drinked the ginevra,” he patted his stomach. “Ah well, it is heatier in Sevillia than in Cadiz, where I goed to escort the catafalque of my brother.”

After that J. and Patsy took the Don away from me, and all that afternoon they kept him to themselves. I followed in another carriage with Pemberton. Bursts of riotous laughter came to us from their cab, as they passed us on the Alameda of Hercules. At the foot of that pleasant, shady mall, our coachman drew up under a pair of tall, gray granite columns.

“The old columns are from a Roman temple,” said Pemberton. “These guardians of the town,” he pointed to the battered old statue that stood on either column, “are Hercules the founder, and Julius CÆsar the second founder of Seville. Oh, yes! Hercules was here; he stopped and rested by the river, and founded Seville that time he wandered through the Peninsula, driving the lowing herds of Geyron before him.”

We had crossed the tawny Guadalquiver, and were driving through Triano, the potters’ suburb, named for the Emperor Trajan. An open doorway gave us a glimpse of a man working a wheel with his feet, and holding a newly moulded clay vase in his hands against the swiftly turning wheel.

“They still make the azulejos, and the pottery in Seville, as they did in the days of the Moors—how do I know? In the days of the Romans! Remember, when you come to build your house, that the tiles of Triano are the best, cheapest, and handsomest in the world; that Seville is a port; and that they can be shipped to you at a fair price. Shall we stop at the factory and see them? The place supplies the whole of Spain with crockery. Patsy would fall in love with the big garden pots, and the pretty jugs.”

The most interesting thing we saw in the factory was the potter himself. Behind the splendid showrooms, where the fine majolicas and the common wares of the common people are displayed, in a dark, dank little corner, sat a man, half his body out of sight, working the potter’s wheel. He sat on the edge of a square hole in the floor; his legs were hidden, but his feet were busy turning, turning the wheel. He was old and poor. His red hands had been in the wet clay who knows how many hours—how many days? He was spiritless and sad in face and bearing, but oh! the skill of those poor red hands! The shapeless lump of soft wet clay was thumped first upon the revolving stand, then as if by magic, though we saw it with our eyes, it took shape, grew lovely and alive under those hands that looked so sodden, and yet could turn that gray mud into shapes of beauty. A cup for a dying man’s broth, a vase for a bride’s rose, a basin to bathe a new-born child: as each was finished he held it up for a moment for us to see, then laid it down beside him with the others. I put a coin in the red, clayey hand. He gave a little mechanical nod, a word of thanks, and went back to his work. He earns less than an unskilled child would earn at home. It is doubtful if he can read or write. He works from dawn to dark—the sight of him gave me great pangs of homesickness! Pemberton could tell me of no movement to help this man to a freer life, to a day whose working hours do not absorb every heartbeat of power. There is only charity! Bread for the hungry, salve for the sick, almshouse for the worked-out human beast of burden. Oh! that I could help him to pass through the Gate of Hope into the Hospitable Land, where every one has his chance, where the ranks are always open.

Triano was already behind us, and we were out upon the Aracena road that runs to the north. Tramp, tramp, tramp, the sound of marching men came towards us out of a cloud of dust. A little farther on we passed a regiment of small brown soldiers; mere boys, most of them. They all wore sandals; some had stockings, some were without. They must have been on fatiguing work, they looked so tired and footsore. In the fields, a band of peasants were cutting the ruby alfalfa; the air was fragrant with the honey-sweet smell of it. The harsh whetting of scythes, the soft swish of sickles through the clover, the song of the leader of the mowers, an oldish man with a red handkerchief tied round his head, marked the time for the march of those weary soldiers,

One of the last of the soldiers, a superb blond man towering above the others, repeated the refrain of the mower’s song:

“Nothing has changed since Strabo praised this pleasant valley,” said Pemberton. “We still use sickles, and we still take the young men from the work of the fields, and turn them into soldiers, food for gunpowder.”

Coming mysteriously towards us, down the straight white road, were half a dozen little moving heaps of newly cut clover. We could not see, until they were upon us, the legs of the tiny donkey trotting along under each fragrant load.

“In Greece,” said Pemberton, “when they want to say a man is a clever, long-headed chap, they call him an ass. Of all asses, the Spanish is the wisest. The peasants work them hard, abuse them a little, but they love them and treat them like members of the family; that is why they are so intelligent.”

We were passing through gray olive groves, between fields of emerald wheat: golden butterflies hovered about the wild lavender growing by the wayside. Here and there, peeping from orchard and ploughed field, were bits of ruins, all that is left of the once splendid forum, the temples and palaces of the old Roman city of Italica. At the guardian’s hut, where we stopped to inquire the way to the circus, we saw a few poor antiquities, some Roman lamps and fragments of sculpture. The guardian was absent, and we looked in vain for a trace of the fine Roman mosaic pavement discovered a hundred years ago, of which we had heard.

A poor monk, Fray JosÉ Moscoso, built a wall round it, hoping to preserve the precious thing, but Soult’s French soldiers destroyed it by turning the enclosure into a goat pen. There is an engraving of this mosaic in the Biblioteca Columbina at Seville. When the archÆologists come to Spain,—or rather when the Spanish archÆologists carry their work farther,—there will be a rich treasure trove. Very little scientific excavation has been undertaken yet. The soil, so rich in archÆological as well as in mineral and agricultural wealth, has hardly been scratched. That is one of the interesting things about Spain,—it has still so much to do. With all its wonderful, romantic past, it is still a young country, with a great future before it. The Spaniards have been so busy keeping the East out of the West, fighting the battles of other nations, keeping those wretched Bourbons on the thrones of Italy where they were not wanted, opening up the New World and making Spanish America, that they have neglected Spain. That was yesterday. To-day all is changed. Spain has pulled on the seven-league boots of the giant Progress, and is striding manfully ahead, making up for lost time.

It is easy enough to turn one’s back upon the great army of ghosts at Seville in Fair time, when life is at the flood and the pulses leap with the thrill of it; in Sevilla Vieja, the old Roman city of Italica, it can’t be done. Here are none but ghosts, and one old gabaloonzy man who acts, in the absence of the true guardian, as our guide; he is a shepherd and his sheep crop the grass that grows over Italica. He stopped his knitting to pick a wild orchid rooted into the crumbling arch of the old Roman amphitheatre.

“MirÉ,” he said; “this is the bee flower. Can you see the bee?”

His needles clicked again, the only sound in the great circus save the noise of the sheep cropping the grass of the arena. In and out of the crimson alfalfa and the wild thyme, buzzed the wild bees gathering honey. They made a soft humming, at first confused, then growing clearer and clearer, till the faint hints of meaning in their song seemed to grow into words:

“Scipio Africanus founded me,” sang the bees, speaking for Italica, “as a refuge for his veterans after the great war with Carthage.”

Out of the shadowy archway leading to the wild beast dens, a stronger shadow fell on the grass. Here, in the city his love and care established for the old soldiers who followed him to victory and immortal glory, I saw magnanimous Scipio, and at his side, a fainter pair, Allutius the Celtiberian prince, with the fair woman both men loved, and whom the Roman, when he learned that she was affianced to Allutius, renounced, refusing all ransom, and asking as his only recompense the friendship of Allutius for the Republic. It was not stranger than all the rest that the shade of the bride looked like Trinidad.

“Three Emperors I gave to Rome,—Trajan, Hadrian, Theodosius!” ran the song of the bees, speaking for Italica forsaken.

Trajan—the good emperor of whom Rome still gossips and has so little harm to say? Why, it was only the other day that standing by your tomb in the Eternal City, in your forum, in the shadow of the great column that bears the record of your triumphs, I heard the old story, told and retold by poet, painter and sculptor; how clear it echoes through the ages! As you rode forth to battle, a poor widow stood at your bridle and would not let you pass, crying out for justice for her son, whom your soldiers had ridden down and killed, innocent of ill. You stopped on your triumphant way and gave that justice the poor woman cried out for, then rode on to victory. Five centuries after your death, in the time of Pope Gregory the Great, your skull was found, with the tongue still alive, so the great Gregory was able to hold parley with you.

“Trajan! Trajan! Where art thou?” cried Gregory.

“In hell,” answered the Emperor.

“Why art thou in hell?”

“Because I was not baptized!”

At hearing this the grief of Gregory was so great that he went into the old church of St. Peter, and wept for Trajan in hell. And the tears of Pope Gregory fell down into hell, and quenched the flames of Trajan’s torment.

I tell the tale as it was told to me by Giacomo Boni, at the foot of Trajan’s column in the city of Rome. The spirit of Trajan has laid hold of Boni, even as it laid hold of the great Gregory, and he, too, arises to demand for Trajan the Just the tribute of our love.

When the others came back, I told Pemberton what had happened in the old circus, while they had been hunting for the forum of Ubs Italica.

“You’ll find us dull company after such!” he laughed. “Visits from Scipio Africanus and Trajan are more exciting than one’s neighbors, and much more easily returned.”

“The trouble is such friendships are so one-sided!” Patsy objected. “What can I do for Marcus Aurelius? The greatest Spaniard of them all. He has done so much for me. His ‘Meditations’ made me think for the first time in my life.”

“Haven’t you learned yet that you can never return a real benefit to the person who conferred it? You can only hand it on, pay the debt to the first needy person you meet. Are we not all debtors to Greeks and Barbarians? All we can ever do for the dead is to keep their names from dying; and, what is so much more important, keep alive the flame that was in them, kindle other souls as they kindled yours. The fire Prometheus stole from heaven never goes out; it is carried from soul to soul as one torch is kindled from another, till the whole earth shall be lighted and no dark places left. The shame of shames is to have received that fire, and let the flame of it go out in you!”

A peasant man and woman, evidently strangers, strayed into the arena, and stood staring at the moss-covered stones. The man, a decent fellow with a pleasant smile and no teeth, greeted the knitting shepherd.

“This perhaps is the ruin of some great palace?” he said.

“It is the bull-ring,” the shepherd corrected, “they say there was a city here once; you can see where the streets were; there are also bits of old churches and houses.”

“Valgame Dios!” exclaimed the stranger, “perhaps this was an important town, before it was ruined a hundred years ago or more!”

“No se sabÉ,” said the shepherd indifferently. He called his dog, who began to herd the sheep, running round and round them in a circle and barking furiously. The sun was westering; it lacked but an hour of setting; we were five miles from our dinner, and reluctantly we turned our backs on Italica, the buried city, with its twice ten hundred years, and drove back to Seville.

“It is a pestilential trait,—this pulling down old cities to build new;” said Pemberton, as we drove through the wretched village of Santiponce. “They pulled down Italica to get building material for Seville. Only the other day, hardly more than a hundred years ago, they took some of the stone of the old circus to make the road to Badajos. Men build cities as birds build nests; not many birds are satisfied with last year’s nests, not many men with other men’s cities.”

“Have you heard,” called Patsy from the other carriage, as with derisive hoots they passed us on the old Roman road, “Don Jaime goes with us to Cordova.”

“As you please,” said the Don; “or take ship and make a little crusade in the Mediterranean,—to Morocco, if you will.”

The next day we left Seville, stopping on the way to the station for a last look at the cathedral. We entered by way of the Court of Oranges, paused beneath the orange trees laden with fruit and blossoms, and drew long breaths of the delicious fragrance. Here Concepcion and Trinidad joined us. Both wore the mantilla, still de rigeur for early mass. Concepcion had a yellow rose in her curls to match her fan. Trinidad carried a bunch of white rosebuds; she was wearing her own dress to-day; it showed the curves of beauty better than that loose frock of Concepcion’s! Both young women looked fresh as roses with the night dew still on them, and smelt pleasantly of orange-flower water. As we stood gossiping by the old fountain, a pretty altar boy in white and scarlet finery came towards us, swinging a gold censer to keep the coals alight. As he passed he looked at Trinidad, and seemed to swing the censer towards her: for a moment we saw her in a cloud of blue incense smoke.

We made the tour of the cathedral, and took leave of Murillo’s Guardian Angel and his San Antonio. A shaft of sunlight carried the stain of the painted glass, ruby, topaz, emerald, to the columns under the round window of the Assumption. The golden mass bells tinkled; they were saying mass in the

chapel royal before the silver altar where Saint Ferdinand is buried. Alive, he was King Ferdinand III; dead, he became a saint, because with his own hands he had carried fagots to burn heretics. A sound of hammers echoed through the great cathedral.

“The fiestas are over,” said Pemberton; “they are taking down the monument over the tomb of Ferdinand Columbus.”

As we passed out through the Puerta del Lagarte under the great crocodile, the twin organs thundered, the choir sang a deep “Amen,” the bells in the Giralda clanged a parting peal.

“Heavens!” murmured Patsy, as from the train window we looked back at the darling of Andalusia, lying in the fold of Guadalquiver’s arm, “what a beautiful world this is!” He blinked as he said it, as if there were tears in his eyes.