“Where are you all?” asked Doña Martina, coming up. “We are going to have our lunch now. Tomás has gone to pick out a good place where we can be undisturbed. We’d better be walking down toward the shore.” A quiet place was not hard to discover, and before long the little party was cosily ensconced under a big tree near the cliffs. “This is the best chicken I ever ate,” remarked Patty. “I can’t see how Manuela does turn out such good things when I see her building that little fire of twigs on top of that stone hearth.” “When a thing has been done in the same way for centuries, the manner of doing ought to become perfection,” replied Doña Martina. “I suppose Manuela has the experience of generations to work with, for the methods have been handed down from mother to daughter who knows how long. Have some wine, Paulette? What would you like, Patty?” “A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and Thou,” she quoted. “Only for Thou, read Tomás,” her sister whispered. “Well, you have it all, for surely this wilderness were Paradise enow’.” “You have left out the singing in the wilderness.” “We had that awhile ago.” The last remnants of the feast were bundled up and bestowed upon a lame beggar whom they met on their way back to the church, and then, as good luck would have it, Don Juan found that his friends, the owners of the old monastery, were at home, and to the little party the great gates were opened, gates behind which the girls had been trying to peep, for the clambering flowers which had reached the top of the wall, gave promise of more beauty within. Through one corridor after another they were led by their obliging hosts. Many of the old cells remained just as they were when the old Benedictines pattered their prayers as they looked forth from the deep set windows; others had been altered to suit the needs of the family. Above the doors of the great _sala_ were coats of arms, for here more than one great personage had been housed. A wide porch overlooked the pretty garden, and the fields beyond, belonging to the estate stretched away and away toward the mountains. A crumbling tower was pointed out as the oldest part of the building; a thousand years old, said their guide. “Think of the old _frales_ who lived here,” said Doña Martina in an awed tone. “Think of all that has happened since this was built. Doesn’t it give one a strange feeling to contemplate these gray walls and think how long they have lasted?” “Can’t you fancy those Benedictine fathers walking in the garden below there, or sitting in their cells working over some beautiful old missal?” returned Patty. “I suppose there was also a nunnery somewhere near,” remarked Paulette. “No doubt, for the church would be the center of a settlement.”