'Wherein I am false, I am honest--not true to be true.'

'And--would you believe it?--there are soldiers in the house, at the
very door of Julia's apartments.' Senora Barenna, who made this
remark, heaved a sigh and sat back in her canework chair with that
jerkiness of action which in elderly ladies usually betokens
impatience with the ways of young people.

'Policemen--policemen, not soldiers,' corrected Father Concha
patiently, as if it did not matter much. They were sitting in the
broad vine-clad verandah of the Casa Barenna, that grim old house on
the Bobadilla road, two miles from Ronda. The priest had walked
thither, as the dust on his square-toed shoes and black stockings
would testify. He had laid aside his mournful old hat, long since
brown and discoloured, and was wiping his forehead with a cheap
pocket-handkerchief of colour and pattern rather loud for his
station in life.

'Well, they have swords,' persisted the lady.

'Policemen,' said Father Concha, in a stern and final voice, which
caused Senora Barenna to cast her eyes upwards with an air of
resigned martyrdom.

'Ah, that Alcalde!' she whispered between her teeth.

'A little dog, when it is afraid, growls,' said Concha