"Mamma, would you allow me to go to the bull-fight with father and Pablo?" asked Fernando next day.

"No, indeed, my son, a bull-fight is no place for women and children," his mother replied. "I have never been to one in all my life, and Juanita shall never attend. I wish Pablo did not care to go, either, but he must do as he wishes now that he is grown. A boy cannot always be at his mother's girdle, but you must be much bigger than now before you will see such a sight."

Fernando sighed, but he knew that there was no use saying more, for the word of la madre was law. He was very anxious to see a bull-fight, for every boy in Spain desires that above all things. The fights are held on all holidays, but the finest one of all is at Easter. The immense amphitheatre of Sevilla holds thousands of spectators, men wild with excitement over the sport, and even women, though the most refined ladies do not frequent the corridos. The bull is turned loose in the centre of the huge ring and tormented until he is ready to fight. Men with sharp-pointed darts, called banderillos, tease him by throwing their barbs at him, and pricking his skin until he is nearly crazy. Then men mounted on horseback, the picadores, wave scarlet cloths before his eyes, exciting him still more, for a bull hates red worse than anything in the world. He dashes at the cruel cloth, and sometimes is too quick for the man who carries it, tossing him on his horns, but generally it is the poor horse who is killed, and the man jumps away to safety. The matador is the one who slays the bull, and he is sometimes killed himself. It is a terribly cruel affair, though Spaniards say it is not so cruel as our prize-fighting.

It was late that evening when Fernando went to bed, and ere he did so there was quite an excitement. They were all seated upon the piazza of the house, he and Juanita, his cousins and their elders, when there was a great cry from the street, "The toro! The toro!" and a clatter of horses' hoofs. All screamed loudly, for to have a bull escape from the pens is a frequent occurrence, and not a very pleasant one. The cries became louder, the horses' hoofs beat nearer and nearer, and as in the dusk a figure dashed down the street, the seÑora, screaming loudly, caught Juanita to her and tried to climb the pillar at her side. She was very stout, and the pillar was very slippery, and she could not climb with one arm, so she slid down as fast as she climbed up, squealing all the time, "A toro, Madre di Dios! a toro!"

Fernando was frightened, too, but he was a brave boy, and he tried his best to push his mother up out of danger, boosting her as she slipped down, but not helping very much, as you might suppose. It seemed to him an hour, but it was only a minute before servants came from the house, and as they did so a horse dashed up before the pillars, and, stopped too hastily by his rider, slid along the stones on his hind feet. On his back was Pablo, waving his sombrero, and crying, "What a corrido! It was glorious! Six bulls to die, and Rosito never in such form! But, madre mia, what is the matter?" as he sprang from his horse and assisted his mother to a seat.

The seÑora could not speak, but Fernando said, "We thought the noise was a bull escaped, and I was assisting my mother to a height of safety."

Pablo looked at the little figure speaking so gravely, then threw back his head and shouted with laughter, but seeing Fernando's hurt expression, stopped quickly, and said:

"Bravo, little brother, thou art a good knight to care for thy mother and sister!"

"Better than thou!" His mother had regained her voice by this time.

"Thou art still the same Pablo, and will yet be the death of thy poor mother," but Pablo kissed her hand so gallantly, and begged her pardon so amiably, that she quite forgave him.

Next day, alas! it was raining, and it rained so hard all that day, and nearly all of the next, that the children were like little bears in a cage. They played with everything they could think of, but after awhile they grew restless and quarrelled so that the grown-up folk grew nervous, too.

At last, Mariquita's father, gay and charming Uncle Ruy, came to the rescue.

"Who wants to take a trip into the country with me?" he asked, and as each one squealed "I!" he said:

"Of course we can't go, really, but we can make believe, and I shall take you to a hacienda outside the old wall of Sevilla.

"It lies amidst orange and olive groves, and all kinds of flowers, and many of the things we eat come from that very place. Who knows how they pickle olives?"

"Are olives pickled?" asked Juanita, and Mariquita said:

"How queer it seems that all the things we eat have to go through so much before they can be eaten. I did not know that olives had to be pickled."

"Yes, mi niÑa, and we will play that we are visiting an olive grove, and we can see the way the olives are picked and made ready for food. See, here are the trees, and the fruit is picked from them and placed in baskets. There are two kinds of olives used, green and ripe, the green ones are picked just before they begin to turn soft. These are separated from the others, and the bitter taste is removed by soaking in fresh water for a long time, or some picklers soak them for a shorter time in a solution of potash lye. This softens the skin and extracts all bitterness, but the olives must be soaked in clear water, which is frequently changed to get all the potash off. Then they are placed in weak brine, and afterward in stronger, until they have the salty taste which we like so much. Then they are put in small barrels and taken to the bottling rooms, where they are bottled and labelled for the market."

"How is the oil made?" asked Fernando.

"That is harder to do, but it is very interesting to watch. The fresh olives are carefully picked, dried a little, and then crushed. Old-fashioned stone mills are used to crush the fruit, and the mass is pressed to extract the liquid which contains all the watery juice as well as the oil and pulp."

"What do they do after it is pressed?" asked Fernando.

"They let it stand for a month and the refuse goes to the bottom. Then the oil is poured off and allowed to stand another month, when the process is repeated. After the third time the oil is ready for use. The best oil is made in this way, as it keeps its colour and flavour better by the settling process than when it is filtered.

"In some places the olives are placed on a platform and the millstone is placed over them. This is turned round and round by means of a pole to which a donkey is hitched, and the mass which is turned out is placed in rush baskets, which are put under a press which is screwed down by five or six men, so that the oil is squeezed out, but that is a very old-fashioned way of making oil, and there are better ways now. They still use this, however, when there is a big crop, and they want to get the fruit made into oil as rapidly as possible. Great care must be taken that everything is clean and that the oil does not become rancid, or it will all be spoiled."

"Is everything we eat so interesting?" asked Juanita.

"The things we eat and wear, too," her uncle answered, "and nothing in all Sevilla is more interesting than the way of making silk."

"How is that done?" asked Fernando.

"I am afraid I could not make you understand it all, unless you could go to the silk manufactory, and even then it would be hard for you. But I can tell you about the cocoons, and that is the strangest thing about it. The silkworm was first brought to Europe from India in 530, when monks brought it to the Emperor Justinian. The silkworm is a kind of a caterpillar which feeds on the leaves of the white mulberry-tree, and lays his eggs in a kind of gummy substance on the leaves in the end of June to be hatched out in the following April. The caterpillar is small at first, about a quarter of an inch long, but grows to be three inches in length. By means of a substance in their mouths the silkworms spin out silky strands which form cocoons, each fibre being about eight hundred yards long. When ready for weaving, the cocoons are placed in an oven at a gentle heat which kills the chrysalis so that the silk fibres can be removed and wound."

"How do they get the silk wound? Doesn't it break?" asked Fernando.

"It is rather hard to do," his uncle answered, "but they learn to be very careful, and the cocoon is soaked in warm water which loosens the little filaments. When the cocoons are reeled the first step has been taken, and the reeled silk is called raw silk, from which all silk products are made."

"I wish we could see it all, but perhaps we can sometime when we are here again," said Fernando. "Oh, it has stopped raining!"

"Yes, indeed, and the Guadalquiver has overflowed its banks," said Pablo, coming in at that moment. "There has not been such a freshet for years. Come along with me, Nando, and we will go boating in the streets. I climbed to the top of the Giralda, and the whole country looks like a great sea."

"Oh, may I go with Pablo and see?" cried Fernando, and his mother, with many injunctions to Pablo to take care of him, said "Yes."

They went to the Alcazar gardens, those most wonderful gardens of Spain, and as it was early spring the flowers and insects were making merry in the sunshine, which had come back with renewed force, after its vacation. Scarcely tumbled by the rain, lovely banksia roses were climbing over the walls, the rosy, blossoming judas-trees, tinted acacias, and pink almonds were in bloom, and orange-trees were bursting into fragrant beauty. Violets and tulips, yellow oxalis, wild hyacinths, and the scarlet dragon-flower carpeted the ground, while tall white lilies, like fair maidens, and stately iris with sword-like leaves, reminding one of the knights of chivalry who once walked these paths, stood sentinel adown the walks. Fernando saw, too, the insects which flitted among the branches, beetles with bright green coats like emeralds, white and gold butterflies, birds with brilliant wings and sweet voices. But Pablo was thinking more of sport than of nature, and he hurried along until they found a man and a boat to row them, and what a gay sail they had right down the main streets of the town! Past the cathedral steps and the Golden Tower where Columbus piled up gold brought from the New World, Sevillians say, and all the other interesting sights of the city, so that Fernando came home tired and happy, to tell Juanita of the wonderful things he had seen.

"I do not wonder that they say, 'He whom God loves has a house in Sevilla,'" he said. "It is so beautiful a city."

"Truly,—

said Mariquita boastingly, but little Juanita prattled in reply the Grenadino's favourite response—