I must also add, to be quite honest, that, often, the impudence of the Sevillian street loafer and the exasperating pursuance of the beggar children, made me break out in Invincible Armada abuse myself; then some slight episode would occur to reprove me. One day we paused to watch a very ugly little girl of five nurse her wounded dog. She was pity incarnate, she had rolled it in her poor shawl and rocked it backward and forward. When she gently touched the bandaged paw tears came to her eyes. We often passed her during the winter, and feeling our sympathy, unconscious of its first cause, the little tot would wait shyly till we had gone by, then dash after us to thrust into our hands two tiny bunches of orange blossoms or violets, and then tear away in confusion, refusing to be thanked. That she so ugly and poor had won two friends intoxicated her warm little heart, and she regularly prepared her offerings of answering affection, to have ready when the strangers passed: every characteristic of this untrained child of the street was admirable. Another time a stationer sent his young apprentice of fourteen to show us the way to a book-binder's. We offered the boy the usual fee, when he flung back his head proudly with a flush; his name was Emilio Teruel y Nobile, and the high-minded young descendant of Aragonese or Castilian blood bore it worthily. Having shown us the shop we sought, and realizing that we now recognized him as an equal, he made his farewell with a poise and reserved grace that were splendid. Later we occasionally passed Emilio, and the equality of the greetings exchanged, not the slightest presumption on his part, is a thing only to be found in _caballero_ Spain.
To follow the church feasts that so diversify and brighten the year for these southern countries, also helps one to see them more justly. On the 19th of March, St. Joseph's Day, a large crowd filled the Cathedral to listen to a sermon, almost the best I have ever heard, wherein the sanctity of the family and the dignity of labor were held up as needed models in the world to-day. Before the lighted altar of St. Joseph I noticed a magnificent looking hidalgo, _muy hijo de algo y de limpia sangre_, with three equally grandly built young sons beside him. Such men had never been raised amid city temptations. The line of the four profiles was so similar it was striking. When they rose from prayer, the self-forgetful prayer of the Spaniard with bowed head and closed eyes, the lads pressed about the father they revered, they laid their hands lovingly on his shoulder, the youngest stroked his back as he talked to him; two of the group were probably named José, and the father had come in from a country town to pass his saint's day with his boys at the University. All over the city, cakes and presents were carried openly, for everyone named Joseph (and the Pepes are legion) was keeping open house, and his friends were pouring in to offer congratulations.