at it instead?" asked Dick.

"You can do that afterwards. And if bread's made with holes in it, you
must stand the holey side up, because the spirit of God enters through the
holes to bless you."

"I thought only olives were sacred in Andalucia," said Dick, staring away
over enormous tracts of the silver-grey trees growing out of copper soil,
waving as far as the eye could follow, to the floating line of ethereal
blue mountains.

"They're sacred, too," assented Pilar. "Did you know, in the old days they
used to be sold only for gold, gold carried on mule back in great bags,
and exchanged on the spot, for the trees--so many for so much? We have
olives at our place, and they're gathered in such a nice old-fashioned
way; papa doesn't care for new ways, even if they make a little more
money. It's pretty to watch. I should like you to see it, only--Senor
Waring doesn't like old-fashioned things."

"I like making the 'little more money,' I'm afraid," Dick confessed.

"Sometimes I like money too--when I want to buy anything. At other times I
don't care. Lately I've been saving up. I've got one thousand nine hundred
pesetas."

"Good gracious!" laughed Dick, "are you going to buy a bull-farm with such
a gigantic sum?"

"Funny you should have said that. I'm going to buy one bull. He's the only
possession of the Duke of Carmona's that I want, and I want him so much
that I've sacrificed oh,--I can't remember how many Paris hats, and shoes,
and silk petticoats, and pretty dresses to get him, with _all_ my own
money! The worst of it is, he'll _never_ know about the hats and things."

Dick was looking interested now.

"What in the name of goodness will you do with him when you get him?" he
inquired.

"Save him," said the girl.

"From what?"

"From the bull-ring. Oh, he's a _toro bravo_, is Vivillo, a heart of gold.
Not the most famous _torero_ in Spain shall pierce it. I've loved him for
four years, since he was a baby at his mother's side, and Rafael Calmenare
used to take me to visit him; loved him better even than Corcito, and all
this time I've been saving up to buy him before he's of the age for a
_corrida_. Now I've enough, or nearly, and there aren't many weeks to
waste, for soon he'll be five; and already he has the strength and courage
of three bulls, my Vivillo! I long to see him again--long for the day when
I can put my arms round his great neck, and say, 'Hermanito, you're
mine!' "

"Your arms round his ne