Once a gentleman always a gentleman, was the squire's motto. There was no attempt at concealment. The poor man, whose life had been so unlovely, lay at peace at last in the best room at the vicarage, and was presently, with some tears of pity shed by gentle eyes, laid in a quiet corner of the churchyard. There was talk, of course, but the talk was confined to the village, where the possession of a drunken father was not uncommon, or uncharitably considered. The worst of the dead man was known only to Jim Foley, and he kept it even from his wife; while any Spartan thoughts which the squire might otherwise have entertained, any objections he might have raised to his daughter's match, were rendered futile and quixotic by the strange mode in which the denouement had been reached in his presence. He consented, and all--after an interval--went well. But the vicar will sometimes, I think, in the days to come, when prosperity laps him round, wander to the churchyard and recall the hot noon when he walked the roads haunted by that strange sense of forlornness and ruin. THE OTHER ENGLISHMAN THE OTHER ENGLISHMAN "You are English, I take it, sir?" It was clear to me that the speaker was. I was travelling alone, and had not fallen in with three Englishmen in as many weeks. I turned to inspect the new-comer with a cordiality his smudged and smutty face could not wholly suppress. "I am," I answered, "and I am glad to meet a fellow-countryman." "You are a stranger here?" He did not take his eyes from me, but he indicated by a gesture of his thumb the busy wharf below piled high with hundreds and thousands of crates full of oranges. From the upper deck of the _San Miguel_ we looked down upon it, and could see all that came or went in the trim basin about us. The _San Miguel_, a steamer of the Segovia Quadra and Company's line, bound for several places on the coast southward, was waiting to clear out of El Grao, the harbour of Valencia, and I was waiting impatiently to clear out with her. "You are a stranger here?" he repeated. "Yes; I have been in the town four or five days, but otherwise I am a stranger," I answered. "You are not in the trade?" he continued. He meant the orange trade. "No, I am not. I am travelling for pleasure," I answered readily. "You will understand that, though it is more than a Frenchman or Spaniard can." I smiled as I spoke, but he was not very responsive. "It is a queer place to visit for pleasure," he said, looking from me to the busy throng about the orange crates. "Not at all," I retorted. "It is a lively town and quaint, and it is warm and sunny. I cannot say as much for Madrid, from which I came two or three weeks back." "Come straight here?" he asked. I was growing tired of his curiosity, but I answered, "No. I stayed a short time at Toledo and Aranjuez, and at several other places." "You speak Spanish?"