But this companion, a man of middle age, sturdy and square-chinned, clad in the uniform of a naval engineer, stood motionless. His face, set in stern lines, was under perfect control, yet, as the son beside him half divined, it was harder for him to enter that fragrant, blossoming enclosure than to face the enemy’s cannon. For it was here that, something over three years ago, he had brought from their simple but pleasant lodgings in Cadiz his tenderly loved wife, hoping that the air of the hilltop might restore her failing strength. Half the savings of a frugal lifetime had been spent to call a great physician from Madrid. He prescribed little medicine, but an abundance of fresh eggs and pure goat’s milk and bade them, to the horror of their devoted maid, always known to the children as Tia Marta, set the invalid’s bed out in the open. But not the restful cool of the evening air nor the living warmth of the sunshine could avail, and to the man who halted at the gate this beautiful garden was the place of sorrow. Recalled to his ship almost immediately after his wife’s death, there had been no time to find a new home for his children. So he had left them in this wild Paradise under charge of his gentle father-in-law and of the faithful, though sharp-tongued, Tia Marta. Since then he had not been able to visit them, for his ship had been sent to the Pacific, and except for brief letters, written to Rodrigo from time to time, and for the small but punctual sums of money forwarded to a Granada bank for the family support, they had heard nothing of him. Rodrigo, too, left much to be desired as a correspondent, although his handwriting blossomed out in bolder flourishes from year to year. He wrote of his progress in his studies, his prizes in mathematics, his interest in the new English sports, his ambition to enter an engineering school and follow his father’s career, and added in a postscript that the rest of the family were well. And all their talk on the homeward climb, after the officer had astonished and rejoiced his son by calling for him at the Institute, had still been of Rodrigo, his successes, his amusements, his future. It would have amazed that vivacious youth to know that under all the kindly responses, the father’s heart was yearning toward the little daughter, longing to find in her face, hardly more than a baby face as he remembered it, some image of her mother’s. Of Rafael he scarcely thought at all. He recollected, without interest, that the younger boy was said to take after him, while both Rodrigo and Pilarica were held to resemble their mother, and it was that resemblance which he craved. He himself recognized it in Rodrigo’s sunny looks and charming manners, but the lad’s frank egotism was all his own.