; it leaps from her strong heart, across
half the world.

"Our real rebirth took place after the Spanish-American war, when our
colonial system collapsed and we had to roll up our sleeves and support
ourselves by hard work. Defeat was to us a blessing in disguise. Spain
is to-day a much different and better land than it was twenty years ago.
For one thing, we use more soap, these days. As the church declines,
bathtubs multiply. _?Tendre que decir mas?_

"A new spirit and a new life are to-day stirring in ancient Iberia. A
splendid artistic and literary renaissance, vast commercial undertakings
and enormous manufacturing enterprises are all developing hand in hand.
Spain's past is glorious. Her future is both glorious and bright."

GEORGE ALLAN ENGLAND.

_12 Park Drive, Brookline, Mass._

* * * * *

CONTENTS

PAGE
PREFACE:
EDUARDO ZAMACOIS vii

THEIR SON 1

THE NECKLACE 91

THEIR SON

I

At about the age of thirty, tired of living all alone with no one to
love, Amadeo Zureda got married. This Zureda was a stocky fellow,
neither tall nor short, dark, thoughtful, and with a certain slow, sure
way of moving. The whole essence of his face, the soul of it--to speak
so--was rooted in the taciturn energy of the space between his eyebrows.
There you found the man, more than in the rough black mustache which cut
across his face; even more than in the thickness of his cheek-bones, the
squareness of his jaws, the hard solidity of his nose. His brow was
somber as an evil memory.

One after the other you might erase all the lines of that face, and so
long as you left the thick-tufted brows, you would not have changed the
expression of Amadeo Zureda. For there dwelt the whole spirit of the
man, reserved yet ardent.

His marriage rescued Rafaela, whom he made his wife, from the slavish
toil of a work-woman. Rafaela was just over eighteen, a buxom brunette
with big, roguish, black eyes. Her breath was sweet, her lips vivid, her
mobile hips full and inviting, like her breasts; and she had a
free-and-easy, energetic, enterprising way of walking. Joined to a kind
of untamed grace (just a bit vulgar, in the manner of a daughter of the
people), she possessed a certain distinction both of face and manner, of
moving, of showing likes and dislikes, that enhanced and exalted her
beauty. Her hands were small