e had been among brigands as well as beggars, and all the Spanish
picaresque fiction seemed to come true in the theft of a black chudda
shawl, which had indeed been so often lost in duplicate that it was time
it was entirely lost. Whether it was secretly confiscated by the
customs, or was accepted as a just tribute by the populace from a poetic
admirer, I do not know, but I hope it is now in the keeping of some
dark-eyed Spanish girl, who will wear it while murmuring through her
lattice to her _novio_ on the pavement outside. It was rather heavy to
be worn as a veil, but I am sure she could manage it after dark, and
_could_ hold it under her chin, as she leaned forward to the grille,
with one little olive hand, so that the _novio_ would think it was a
black silk mantilla. Or if it was a gift from him, it would be all
right, anyway.

Our visit to Spain did not wholly realize my early dreams of that
romantic land, and yet it had not been finally destitute of incident.
Besides, _we_ had not gone very far into the country; a third block
might have teemed with adventure, but we had to be back on the steamer
before three o'clock, and we dared not go beyond the second. Even
within this limit a love of reality underlying all my love of romance
was satisfied in the impression left by that dusty, empty, silent
street. It seemed somehow like the street of a new, dreary, Western
American town, so that I afterward could hardly believe that the shops
and restaurants had not eked out their height with dashboard fronts. It
was not a place that I would have chosen for a summer sojourn; the sense
of a fly-blown past must have become a vivid part of future experience,
and yet I could imagine that if one were born to it, and were young and
hopeful, and had some one to share one's youth and hope, that Spanish
street, which was all there was of that Spanish town, might have had its
charm. I do not say that even for age there was not a railway station by
which one might have got away, though there was no sign of any trains
arriving or departing--perhaps because it was not one o'clock in the
morning, which is the favorite hour of departure for Spanish trains.

When we turned to drive back over the neutral territory the rock of
Gibraltar suddenly bulked up before us, in a sheer ascent that left the
familiar Prudential view in utterly inconspicuous unimpressive-ness.
Till one has seen it from this point one has not truly seen it. The vast
ston