The scene of all the stories of this collection is in the Encartaciones, and an examination of a few of them will make us acquainted with the usual range of characters and the author's mode of treatment. The first is entitled "The Resurrection of the Soul" (_La Resurreccion del Alma_), and opens with an account of the village of C----, one of the fifteen composing the Encartaciones. Here lived Santiago and Catalina, the latter a foundling whom Santiago's parents had found at their door one winter morning. The good people, who had always desired a daughter, cared tenderly for the little stranger, and she grew up with their son, who was a few years older. It had been decided that when Santiago was fifteen he should go to his uncle in Mexico; which country, for the simple inhabitants of Biscay, is still "India," and the retired merchants who return to spend their last days in their native towns are "Indians"--a class that often play an important part in the denouement of Trueba's simple plots. At the beginning of the story the two children (Santiago was nearly fifteen) had gone off to play and allowed the goats to get into the fields. The angry father is about to punish Catalina, who has assumed all the blame, but his wife mollifies him by reminding him that they have received a piece of good news. Ramon good-humoredly says, "You women always have your own way," and proceeds to tell a story to illustrate it. We give it as an example of the popular tales that Trueba often weaves into his stories: "Once upon a time, when Christ went through the world healing the sick and raising the dead, a woman came out to meet him and said to him, seizing hold of his cloak and weeping like a Magdalen, 'Lord, do me the favor to come and raise my husband, who died this morning.' "'I cannot stop,' answered the Lord. 'I am going to perform a great miracle--that is, find a good mother among the women who are fond of bull-fights; but everything will turn out well if the ass doesn't stop. All I can do for you is that if you take it into your head to raise your husband, your husband will be raised.' "And indeed the wife took it into her head that her husband must be raised, and her husband was raised, for even the dead can't resist the whims of women." The good news that Ramon had received was a letter from his brother, who wished Santiago to be sent to him by the first steamer leaving Bilbao. It was the 15th of August, the Feast of the Assumption, when Santiago, accompanied by his father, prepared to start for Bilbao.