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“But I have a real which I will gladly give,” interrupted the ranchero. “Your grace must not think I presume to beg of your bounty. I—”

“Tut! tut!” interrupted the major-domo; “dost think we are shop-keepers or Jews here at Tres Hermanos? Keep thy real for the first beggar who asks an alms;” and he drew himself up as proudly as if all the grain and fodder he dispensed were his own personal property. “But,” he added, with a curiosity that came perhaps from the plebeian suspicion inseparable from his stewardship, “hast thou come far to-day? Thy beast seems weary,—though as far as that goes it would not need a long stretch to tire such a knock-kneed brute.”

“I come from Las Vigas,” answered the traveller, doffing his hat at these dubious remarks, as though they were highly complimentary. “Saving your grace’s presence, the mule is a trusty brute, and served my father before me; but like your servant, he is unused to long journeys,—this being the first time we have been so far from our birthplace. Santo Niño, but the world is great! Since noon have my eyes been fixed upon the magnificence of your grace’s dwelling-place, and, by my faith, I began to think it one of the enchanted palaces my neighbor Pablo Arteaga, who travels to Guadalajara, and I know not where, to buy and sell earthenware, tells of!”