from such associations. Again, poor Dick! And
now he no longer tried to hide the loving admiration in his eyes. I think
he would even have done his best to fondle a wild bull or two of her
acquaintance had they been among the friends who gave her welcome.

Away boomed the Gloria to the stables--the sole garage at the Cortijo--while
we were bidden through the Moorish entrance-porch and wrought-iron
_cancela_ into a _patio_ surrounded on all sides by an arcade, roofed with
green and brown tiling. The supporting pillars were of pale pink brick,
not marble, and the pavement was of brick also, interset with a pattern of
small blue tiles. But the tiles were old and good; from a carved stone
basin in the middle of the court sprang the tall crystal stem of a
fountain, blossoming into diamonds; pearly arum lilies, pink azaleas, and
pale green hydrangeas bloomed in huge white and blue and yellow pots from
Triana, of the same beautiful shapes made before Santa Justa and Santa
Rufina knew they were saints, and undertook to keep the Giralda from
falling.

The windows leading into the rooms surrounding the _patio_ were large as
doors, and all were hospitably open, giving through thin curtains glimpses
of old furniture carefully grouped to please a woman's dainty taste. Pilar
again--always Pilar! Here were her _lares_ and _penates_; and she was a
goddess among lesser household gods. I knew that it would be safer for
Dick to say a hasty good-bye upon the threshold; but I knew also that no
power on earth could force him to do it.

"This is only a farm, you know," said the girl, meekly, all the while
dimpling with pride in her home and what she had made it; "for we are only
farmers, aren't we, Papa."

Our rooms--Dick's and mine--were not overstocked with furniture; but there
were two or three things for which an antiquary would have pawned his
soul. On one side, our windows looked upon the _patio_; on the other, we
gazed through iron bars over olives and meadows where grain was green.
There was no sound save the tinkling rain of the fountain, and now and
then the sleepy note of a bird, or a far-away lowing of cattle--perhaps the
welcoming bellow of Vivillo, the brown bull which was the sole possession
of Carmona coveted by Pilar.

The two servants who waited at dinner were wreathed in smiles at seeing
again their master and mistress; and their occasional furtive glances of
interest in my direction made me wonder if they had not recei