will steal her," said Pilar.

"If she would only let me! But she won't."

"Who knows what she will be ready to do if they press her? And after
to-night, too! She seemed half afraid of him, as if she began to realize
more and more what he is. Oh, if you weren't here I should want to do some
desperate deed and snatch her away myself! He likes having her admired,
while she's not yet his; but he has enough of the Moor in him to shut up a
wife, so that no other man should see her beauty. And then presently he
would tire, and be cruel."

"Don't let's talk of it," said I. "It's not going to happen."

Though it was so late before we slept, we were dressed at an unearthly
hour--according to the Cherub--and driving out with the small luggage which
accompanied us on the car, to Don Cipriano's place on the Toledo road.

Ropes had spent the night there, and the Gloria was ready. The luggage was
got into place; and Don Cipriano and his mother--a fairy godmother of an
old lady, with a white dome of hair under a priceless black lace
mantilla--were determined to provide us with food and drink as if to
withstand a siege.

There was a snow-cured ham from Trevelez, the most famed in Andalucia.
There was delicious home-made bread, _cuernos_, _molletes_, and
_panecillos_; and olives large as grapes. There was white, curded cheese;
quince jam or _carne de membrillo_; angels' hair, made of shredded melons
with honey; _mazapan_, smelling of almonds, and shaped like figures of
saints, serpents, and horses; oranges from Seville and Tarifa; fat figs
dried on sticks; and, most wonderful of all, a wineskin of the country, so
old that the taste of the skin was gone a generation ago, and plump with
as much good red wine as would have filled six bottles.

"You will need these things," insisted the old lady, giving the Cherub a
friendly pat on the arm, as she encircled Pilar's waist. "It is different
on the road between Madrid and Seville, from those you have travelled. You
will want to lunch out of doors, in the sunshine, for you won't find good
things like these at any little venta. I know, for I have been with my
son. I am a heroine, my friends say. We will pack everything well for
you."

"And the wineskin you must hang on the side of the car," said Don
Cipriano, all solicitude for our welfare, poor fellow, believing happily,
as he did now, that neither Dick nor I was dangerous. "There's no cure for
Spanish dust, except Spanish wine. Besides,