Home again! At first it seemed to Fernando as if he could never go back to school, for after his week of fÊtes and processions and fun, lessons were dull things, but he soon fell into the old ways, and there were so many pleasant things at home that he did not pine for Sevilla at all.

He had a pet lamb—what boy has not in spring-time in Spain?—and he was devoted to it for awhile, trying to feed it all manner of things.

"Manuel," he said one day, "I do not know what is wrong with my pet lamb. It will not eat the things I give it. I have never seen so stubborn a thing. Mazo is far different. It will eat anything at all, but the lamb stands and stares at me, and shuts its mouth, no matter what I offer him."

"Lambs are always stubborn," said Manuel. "They do not eat much but milk when they are so young. But here, I have a new kite; will you fly it?"

"Indeed I will," cried the boy, and in an instant the lamb was forgotten, and he was skipping down the street, his kite skimming the air like a gaily coloured bird.

It was a beautiful spring in Granada, and Fernando spent every minute out of doors unless actually compelled to be in school or in bed. The family ate in the lovely patio where the flowers were beginning to blossom, and the sun was not too warm to do without the awning, which in summer stretched overhead. If it was not kites in which he was interested, it was marbles and ball, or even a play bull-fight; and Fernando was very proud when he was chosen to be "toro," and put his head in a basketwork affair with points like horns, and the boys chased him with sticks, running, jumping, and dodging when he turned and charged them as he had heard that the bulls did at the real corridos.

Best of all, it was time to have his head shaved, and of all things that was what he liked. His mother mourned, for the boy's hair was naturally curly, and in winter was as soft and pretty as black velvet. But all Spanish boys have their heads shaved in summer, and Fernando must be like the rest. It was cut so close that it made him look very funny, and his great black eyes shone like beads in his lean brown face, with no soft hair to soften its harsh outlines.

Fernando and Antonio were still devoted friends. They played together after school and on the holidays, and many delightful times did the two boys have, either in the Alhambra or at Fernando's home, where there were many city sights as interesting to Antonio as the delights of the old palace were to Fernando.

So devoted had they become that Fernando felt very sorry to leave his friend when the time came for him to accompany his mother and sister to their country home. Generally he had been delighted to go to the hacienda, and enjoyed the country school even more than the one he attended in the city, but this year he felt so badly over it that his father said:

"Never mind, my son. I shall bring Antonio out to visit you when school is over, and you may have a fine time together at the hacienda." This made Fernando more contented, and he went away with his parents quite happily.

As they started for the country on a bright May day, Juanita said, "Oh, mamma, see that strange cow! It is all dressed with flower-wreaths, and has bells around its neck and flowers on its horns. Why does that young girl lead it, and that old blind man walk behind, and blow that horn and beat the drum?"

"That is a cow to be won in a lottery," said the seÑora. "Manuel, stop; I wish to buy a ticket. How we Spaniards do love a game of chance! See, I shall buy a ticket for each one of you, and maybe your number will win the prize."

"Oh, thank you, mamma!" both children cried, for neither had ever had a lottery ticket before.

"Now I wish you to stop at a cigar-store, and buy a stamp[13] for my letter to your Aunt Isabella, and then we will drive on."

As they turned into the main street leading to the Alameda, Juanita asked, "Oh, mi madre, what are those people sitting in the streets making?"

"Haven't you seen the ice-cream makers before?" said the seÑora. "No, I think you cannot remember last summer, can you? The gipsies go up to the Sierras in the very early morning, and get donkey-loads of snow, and the people make ice-cream in those pails with the snow in it. They sit right at their doors on the sidewalk and make the fresh cream, and any one can buy a glass of it."

"Do let us have some," cried the children, and their indulgent mother ordered the horses stopped while they ate some of the delicious fresh cream.

As the carriage rolled on down the steep street, so narrow that as Manuel said "one can hardly pass another after a full dinner," the swineherd was just coming out for the day, and Juanita cried:

"Oh, madre! See that man with the pipe in his mouth; what queer music he plays! What is he?"

"He is the swineherd, niÑa. See, he comes from his alley, staff in hand," the seÑora said. "Watch him blow his pipe without turning his head, and the pigs come after him, as if he had charmed them. Little and big, dark and light, fat and scrawny, there they come following him to pasture. Every alley we pass adds some curly tail to the procession. Now he is ready to turn out of the town into that grove, and see what an army of piggies follows him! He never looks for any of them, but they hear the music of his pipe and start because they learned long ago that it leads them to good pastures."

"I think they are too funny for anything," said the little girl. "Does he bring them back at night?"

"Yes, and every little piggy knows his own alley, and goes right home with a little frisk of his curly tail to say 'good night,'" said her mother, smiling.

"See those oxen; are they not splendid fellows? I love to see them draw their loads so easily. Beautiful creamy creatures, with their dark points and their great, soft eyes."

"What is that wooden thing over their heads?" asked Juanita.

"That is the yoke to couple them together. They are the gentlest animals in the world, these great, hornÈd beasts, and the driver walks in front of them with a stick over his shoulder, which he seldom thinks of using."

"Oh, what a cunning little donkey!" cried the little girl, as they passed a tiny donkey laden with panniers filled with flowers, fruit, vegetables, bread, fowls, and even a water-jar. "How prettily he is clipped, all in a pattern."

"Mamma," said Fernando, "some of the donkeys that the gipsies have clipped have mottoes and pictures on them. I know a boy whose donkey has 'Viva mi Amo'[14] on his side. I don't like that, for if the donkey doesn't love his master, it is telling a story."

His mother laughed. "We will hope he has a good little master, and then the donkey will care for him and not be telling a falsehood with his fur.

"But here we are almost to the hacienda, and how short the ride has seemed. Now if two children I know are good, we shall have a delightful summer, and although you are to be in the country, and thou, Fernando, will go to a country school, remember the saying of thy fathers: