“For my seeming like an Englishman? Yes, of course, but I still claim America and am delighted to meet Americans. One finds very few in this part of the world.” “We haven’t met any. You are the first we have seen, and you are really a sort of mixture, aren’t you?” “I suppose I am, but in spite of that I still cling to the traditions of my boyhood. The happiest years of my life were spent in the States.” “That sounds very English, or foreign, I should say. We are so lordly in our claims that we call ourselves Americans and our country America, while here an Americano is one who has been to Spanish America. We are Inglesas because we speak English. I felt quite abashed when I asked a Spanish-American if he were not a Spaniard, and he quite indignantly replied, ‘No, I am an American.’ ‘But you speak Spanish,’ I persisted. ‘So do you speak English,’ he said, ‘but you are not an Englishwoman.’ It was quite a new point of view to me. That was when I first came abroad; now I am broader-minded.” “From what part of America are you?” asked Doña Martina, addressing her neighbor. “One cannot tell by your speech, you know.” “I was born in Louisville, Kentucky. My father’s name was Robert Lisle and mine is the same.” “I wonder if you could be related to Margaret Lisle, who married our uncle, Henry Beckwith.” “She is my first cousin.” “Really? Isn’t that a coincidence? As we are continually saying, the world is very small. I must tell my husband; he knows Uncle Henry very well. Why, you are quite like a relative, and from our own state, too. What are you doing down here in Spain? Traveling for pleasure?” “No, I am a mining engineer. I have come down with some Englishmen interested in the mines of this province. I have been to Gijon and am going to join my friends in Santander later on. I stopped off at this place, where I had been once before, and, remembering this good little _fonda_, I concluded it would be a proper center from which to make a few trips to Covadonga and other places in the neighborhood.” “Covadonga is one of the places we have in mind to visit,” Doña Martina told him. “Just now we are merely staying here till our house shall be in order. It should have been ready before this, but you know the Spanish _mañana_, and the painters will not have left it for a few days yet. Meanwhile, we are comfortable and are seeing something of the life in the village.” “Unfortunately for me, my Spanish is very shaky and I cannot get along without a phrase book. It seemed rather venturesome to come to these parts so poorly equipped, but the call was sudden, and I had no time to prepare for it.” “I’ve no doubt you know as much as Mademoiselle Delambre and I do,” Patty chimed in. “I make frightful mistakes, but I plunge in recklessly and am gradually getting a vocabulary.”