“Ay, as upright as the finger of Saint John. He is no common carrier, your uncle. People trust him with packets of rare value, and he is charged with affairs of importance, as the receipt and payment of money.” “Is money important?” asked Rafael. “Your uncle thinks so, but I tell him that many a man gets to heaven in tow breeches. Yet surely it fares ill in this world with the people of the brown cloak. There is a saint, they say, called San Guilindon, who is forever dancing before the throne of God and singing as he dances: “‘May the prayers of the poor Never rise to Heaven’s door!’ On that saint I, for one, shall not waste candles.” “Does Uncle Manuel ever get angry with his mules?” asked Pilarica anxiously, for she had not travelled the white road all these days without hearing the curses of harsh voices and the thwack of heavy blows. “Not often, Little Canary of the Moon. Don Manuel is calmer than the parish church.” “And our Cousin Dolores?” pursued Pilarica. “Is she pretty?” “Nothing is ugly at fifteen.” “And our Aunt Barbara, my father’s own sister? She is lovely, of course,” asserted Rafael, the wistful look crossing his brown face. “‘There is no sea-wave without salt; There is no woman without her fault,’ but Doña Barbara is one of the best.” Suddenly Tia Marta beat her fist upon the table. “_Ay de mi!_ That I, an Andalusian of Seville, must go to Galicia, to the ends of the earth, to serve in the house of strangers!” she cried chokingly. “How shall I bear the ways of a mistress? Whether the pitcher hit the stone, or the stone hit the pitcher, it goes ill with the pitcher.” Then there fell upon the group a silence that awakened Grandfather. “Is the coach rolling over sand,” he asked, “or are the wings of an angel shedding hush as he passes overhead?” Pedrillo, who had fallen into a deep muse, roused himself with a laugh. “We have all been dreaming,” he said in his gruffest tone. “It is because we are so near to Cordova, the City of Dreams. And yet we are three hours away. But he who goes on, gets there.” As the muleteer was paying the modest charge, the children watched the swineherd who, in his tattered cloak and sugar-loaf hat, was passing down the street, while the pigs, without pausing to say good night, scurried off every one to his own threshold. A goatherd, too, whose cloak was faded and whose leather gaiters flapped in rags, was milking his goats from door to door. “People of the brown cloak!” murmured Rafael thoughtfully. It was already cooler and the beasts they mounted were refreshed as well as the riders. “Go on your way with God!” called the old dame from the threshold. “And do thou abide with God!” chorused the travellers.