ler towns of Spain have little to do with
the ground floor of the building, often nothing but a cold, unlighted,
deserted passage, sometimes leading to a stable yard. No one receives
you, and you have to find your own way upstairs. When there is a choice
of staircases you probably take the wrong one. On this occasion we had
only one course before us--broad white marble stairs that bore witness
to a very different destiny in days gone by, the pomp and splendour of
life, the glory of the world. At the head of this sumptuous staircase
our host met us with a polite bow and welcome; and throughout Spain we
never met landlord more intelligent and well-informed, more agreeable
and anxiously civil. We were puzzled as to his nationality. He did not
look Catalonian, or Spanish of any sort, spoke excellent French, yet was
decidedly not a Frenchman. When the mystery was solved we found him an
Italian. A man ruling very differently from our energetic hostess at
Narbonne, who, full of electricity herself, seemed to have the power of
galvanising every one else into perpetual motion.

Our Gerona host was quiet and passive, as though all day long he had
nothing to do but rest on his oars and take life easily. He never
hastened his walk beyond a certain measure or raised his voice above a
gentle tone. Yet, like well-oiled works, he kept the complicated
machinery in order. There was no friction and no noise, but everything
came up to time. He was last in bed at night, first up in the morning. A
tall, thin, dark man, with an expression of face in which there was no
trace of impatient fretting at life. If wealth had not come to him (we
knew not how that was), evil days had passed him by. He had learned the
secret of contentment, and was a man of peace. Yet he had brought up a
large family of sons and daughters, and could not have escaped care and
responsibility. They now took their part in the _menage_, but it was
evident that without the father nothing would hold together for an hour.

The youngest son, a tall, presentable young fellow, had been partly
educated at Tours and spoke very good French. His ambition now was to
spend two years in England to perfect himself in the language, which he
was good enough to consider difficult and barbarous. "French," he
plaintively observed, "is pronounced very much as it is spelt; so are
Spanish and Italian; I have them all at my finger-ends. But English has
done its best to confound all foreigners. It