:
'You're a mighty funny fellow.'

I expressed my pleasure at having provided the skinners with amusement
and bidding them farewell, trotted on.

I went for a long time among the interminable olives, grey and sad
beneath the sullen clouds, and at last the rain began to fall. I saw a
farm not very far away and cantered up to ask for shelter. An old woman
and a labourer came to the door and looked at me very doubtfully; they
said it was not a _posada_, but my soft words turned their hearts and
they allowed me to come in. The rain poured down in heavy, oblique
lines.

The labourer took Aguador to the stable and I went into the parlour, a
long, low, airy chamber like the refectory of a monastery, with windows
reaching to the ground. Two girls were sitting round the _brasero_,
sewing; they offered me a chair by their side, and as the rain fell
steadily we began to talk. The old woman discreetly remained away. They
asked about my journey, and as is the Spanish mode, about my country,
myself, and my belongings. It was a regular volley of questions I had to
answer, but they sounded pleasanter in the mouth of a pretty girl than
in that of an obese old skinner; and the rippling laughter which greeted
my replies made me feel quite witty. When they smiled they showed the
whitest teeth. Then came my turn for questioning. The girl on my right,
prettier than her sister, was very Spanish, with black, expressive eyes,
an olive skin, and a bunch of violets in her abundant hair. I asked
whether she had a _novio_, or lover; and the question set her laughing
immoderately. What was her name? 'Soledad--Solitude.'

I looked somewhat anxiously at the weather, I feared the shower would
cease, and in a minute, alas! the rain passed away; and I was forced to
notice it, for the sun-rays came dancing through the window,
importunately, making patterns of light upon the floor. I had no further
excuse to stay, and said good-bye; but I begged for the bunch of violets
in Soledad's dark hair and she gave it with a pretty smile. I plunged
again into the endless olive-groves.

It was a little strange, the momentary irruption into other people's
lives, the friendly gossip with persons of a different tongue and
country, whom I had never seen before, whom I should never see again;
and were I not strictly truthful I might here lighten my narrative by
the invention of a charming and romantic adventure. But if chance brings
us often for a moment into other