the mountain into a picnic
ground and the festival into a fair.

Mon never knew when the spirit would move him to make this pleasant
journey, but his preparations for it must have been made in advance, and
his departure by an early train the day after meeting his old friend the
Count de Sarrion was probably sudden to every one except himself.

He left the train at Lerida, going on foot from the station to the town,
but he did not seek an hotel. He had a friend, it appeared, whose house
was open to him, in the Spanish way, who lived near the church in the
long, narrow street which forms nearly the whole town of Lerida. In
Navarre and Aragon the train service is not quite up to modern
requirements. There is usually one passenger train in either direction
during the day, though between the larger cities this service has of late
years been doubled. It was afternoon, and the hour of the siesta, when
Evasio Mon walked through the narrow streets of this ancient city.

Although the sun was hot, and all nature lay gasping beneath it, the
streets were unusually busy, and in the shades of the arcades at the
corner of the market-place, at the corner of the bridge, and by the bank
of the river, where the low wall is rubbed smooth by the trousers of the
indolent, men stood in groups and talked in a low voice. It is not too
much to state that the only serene face in the streets was that of Evasio
Mon, who went on his way with the absorbed smile which is usually taken
in England to indicate the Christian virtues, and is associated as often
as not with Dissent.

The men of Lerida--a simpler, more agricultural race than the
Navarrese--were disturbed; and, indeed, these were stirring times in
Spain. These men knew what might come at any moment, for they had been
born in stirring times and their fathers before them. Stirring times had
reigned in this country for a hundred years. Ferdinand VII--the beloved,
the dupe of Napoleon the Great, the god of all Spain from Irun to San
Roque, and one of the thorough-paced scoundrels whom God has permitted to
sit on a throne--had bequeathed to his country a legacy of strife, which
was now bearing fruit.

For not only Aragon, but all Spain was at this time in the most
unfortunate position in which a nation or a man--and, above all, a
woman--can find herself--she did not know what she wanted.

On one side was Catalonia, republican, fiery, democratic, and
independent; on the other, Navarre, more p