redeemed by such changeful
splendour of colour as I had never seen. Swelling undulations, worthy to
be named mountains, were warm with the purple of heather, though no
heather grew upon them. Sometimes you could have fancied, from a sudden
outburst of radiance on a distant hilltop, that a rainbow had lain down to
rest. And through all there was never absent that impression that this was
painted-glass-window country with its rich tones of crimson and violet,
its palely luminous skies, and the solemnity of its blended hues. Always
there was a haunting effect of sadness, even in the spring purity of those
white blossom-arches which decorated the brown monotony of our roads.

The sky still burned dusky red when in the midst of a wide plain, the
soaring twin-spires of Burgos stood up for our eyes against a rose veil of
sunset pinned with the diamond heads of stars. Away to our left, as we ran
towards the town, was a dark building like Eton College chapel standing on
a wind-swept hill; and this I knew to be the convent of Miraflores, where
Isabel la Catolica employed Gil de Siloe to make for her father and mother
the "most beautiful tomb in the world."

I felt a sense of possession in the grand old town, coming upon it thus at
its best; and I was glad that fate had driven me into my own land _en
automobile_. Even though, in following Carmona to watch over the girl we
both loved, I might have to keep often to the beaten track made
commonplace by tourists, the way would never be really commonplace, as to
sightseers who take the ordinary round by train.

Each new hour of life on the road would build up knowledge for me of my
people and my country. I should not be studying it in any obvious,
guide-book way, and I should learn more of real Spain in a few weeks than
in months of conscientious railway plodding from one point to another.

There was no question which hotel Carmona might choose. He would go to the
best; consequently unobtrusive persons whose hopes lay in keeping to the
background, must select one less good.

We halted outside the town, while I consulted a guide-book for the most
Spanish _fonda_ in Burgos. When, straining my eyes in the twilight, I read
out a name, Dick exclaimed, "That's where Angele's friends the O'Donnels
are staying."

"All the better," said I. "You can carry out your commission without
trouble. Perhaps you'll see them at dinner. They're sure to be the only
foreigners there, so it will be easy