gainst
me."

"Still, we are poor," said Pilar. "New brother, pray be careful of
Cristobal's clothes," and she laughed merrily. "It will be a long time
before we can afford to buy others."

"And all that copper eating its head off underground," gasped Dick.

"We have cousins who are prouder than we about such things," said Pilar.
"Two girls and their mother, who live in Seville. They've a beautiful old
house with lovely grounds, but nothing else. How they manage not to
starve, the saints know. They've sold their china and jewels--everything
but their mantillas--to keep their carriage; and they have to share that
with two other families of cousins, each taking it in turn; but they have
three doors to the carriage--a door with the family crest of one, a door
with the crest of the second, and another with the third; so nobody
outside knows. A Scotch company want to buy their house and land for an
hotel, and have offered enough money to make them rich for life; but
they'd rather die than give up the place. And although one of my cousins
can paint beautifully, and could make a great deal by selling pretty
sketches of Seville, her mother won't allow it. I do think it's carrying
pride too far; but there are lots of people I know who are like that."

"It makes me feel as if I'd came through a week's illness just to hear it
all," said Dick. "I can't get over that copper."

Through village after village we sped smoothly, everyone delighted to see
us except the dogs, who resented our coming, and made driving a
difficulty, until Ropes picked up a trick which usually served to keep
dogs and car out of danger from one another. He would throw up his arms
suddenly and the dog, thinking of a whip or a stone, would mechanically
spring out of harm's way. By that time we would have whizzed past.

After a short run we reached Torquemada, home of the Grand Inquisitor;
crossed the Pisuerga by a long-legged bridge straddling across the
river-bed; had a fleeting glimpse of Venta de Banos; came to a
straight-cut canal of beryl-green water (which Dick gloomily pronounced a
surprising evidence of energy in Spain), and slowed down to wonder at a
village of cave dwellings, hollowed out in tiers in the hillside, above
the road on our right.

It was such a place as Crockett describes excitingly in one of his books
of adventure. All the long, yellow flank of the hill was honeycombed with
little, dark doorways and leering windows, whence wild face