They reached Bilbao by dark, but from their windows they could look down upon the brightly lighted streets, could hear the band play in the little park opposite, and could realize that they were really in the land of Don Quixote.
The next afternoon found them arrived in a pretty little village nestled at the foot of the mountains. The great house into which they were ushered was called the palacio, and was centuries old. A high wall surrounded the garden where flowers blossomed the year round. The bare floors were of oaken planks hewn by hand. Outside the windows the balconies bore hanging vines or boxes of pinks, the Spaniard's favorite flower. In the patio pigeons strutted about, the little house dog rested in the shade of the orange trees, and a thrush sang sweetly from its cage hung in the doorway.
"It is something like California," whispered Mary Lee to her sister.
"Of course," returned Nan. "California was Spanish not so many years ago."
It was but a few minutes before a girl a little older than Nan came down to meet them. "E ahm glahd to zee you," she said smiling and putting out her hand.
Miss Dolores laughed. "Mercedes has been practicing that sentence for days. It is the only English she knows. This is my cousin, Mercedes Cabrales," she went on, "and these," she spoke in Spanish, "are my friends, Nan and Mary Lee Corner. You must all call each other by your first name; we do so in Spain."
Mercedes led the way up the front stairs and took the girls into a lofty room, rather scantily furnished but comfortable. There she left them with a parting nod and smile.
Nan went to the window. "I see mountains everywhere," she said, "and the sea is just over that hill, Mr. St. Nick says. That dismal creak is not the hum of a large variety of mosquito, Mary Lee, but it is a cow-cart. In these country places they wouldn't do away with the creak for anything because otherwise how would they know when to wait on the widest part of a narrow road till the cart coming in the opposite direction had passed? Isn't it all queer and different from anywhere else? There are two parrots next door; I hear them, and that must be a chapel where the little bell is hanging in the belfry. I love these balconies. The big ones are gallerias and the little ones miradores. There are lovely gardens behind all those stone walls, and the roads lead on up, up the mountains. Mr. St. Nick has been telling me all about it." And then Miss Dolores tapped at the door and they all went down to meet Doña Teresa and her son Don Antonio.