me miles in rear of the
villa. The house itself was a long, low building, of which the white
stone walls had acquired the mellow tint that time and exposure to the
seasons can alone impart. A solid balcony of carved unpainted oak ran
completely round the house, its breadth preventing the rays of the sun
from entering the rooms on the ground floor, and thereby converting them
into a cool and delightful refuge from the heats of summer. The windows
of the first and only story opened upon this balcony, which, in its
turn, received shelter from a roof of yellow canes, laid side by side,
and fastened by innumerable packthreads, in the same way as Indian
matting. This sort of awning was supported by light wooden pillars,
placed at distances of five or six feet from each other, and
corresponding with the more massive columns that sustained the balcony.
At the foot of these latter, various creeping plants had taken root. A
broad-leafed vine pushed its knotty branches and curled tendrils up to
the very roof of the dwelling, and a passion-flower displayed its
mystical purple blossoms nearly at as great a height; while the small
white stars of the jasmine glittered among its narrow dark-green leaves,
and every passing breeze wafted the scent of the honeysuckle and
clematis through the open windows, in puffs of overpowering fragrance.

About two hundred yards to the right of the house, rose one of the
ranges of hills already mentioned, and on the opposite side the eye
glanced over some of those luxuriant corn-fields which form so important
a part of the riches of the fertile province of Navarre. The ground in
front of the villa was tastefully laid out as a flower garden, and,
midway between two magnificent chestnut trees, a mountain rivulet fell
into a large stone basin, and fed a fountain, from which it was spouted
twenty feet into the air, greatly to the refreshment of the surrounding
pastures.

The party that on the evening in question was enjoying the scent of the
flowers and the song of the nightingales, to which the neighbouring
trees afforded a shelter, consisted, in the first place, of Don Torribio
Olana, a wealthy proprietor of La Rioja, and owner of the country-house
that has been described. He had been long used to pass the hot months of
each year at this pleasant retreat; and it was no small calamity to him
when the civil war that broke out on the death of Ferdinand, rendered it
scarcely safe, in Navarre at least, to li