JOINT OWNERS IN SPAIN.


The Old Ladies' Home, much to the sorrow of its inmates, "set back from
the road." A long, box-bordered walk led from the great door down to
the old turnpike, and thickly bowering lilac-bushes forced the eye to
play an unsatisfied hide-and-seek with the view. The sequestered old
ladies were quite unreconciled to their leaf-hung outlook; active life
was presumably over for them, and all the more did they long to "see
the passing" of the little world which had usurped their places. The
house itself was very old, a stately, square structure, with pillars on
either side of the door, and a fanlight above. It had remained
unpainted now for many years, and had softened into a mellow
lichen-gray, so harmonious and pleasing in the midst of summer's vital
green, that the few artists who ever heard of Tiverton sought it out,
to plant umbrella and easel in the garden, and sketch the stately
relic; photographers, also, made it one of their accustomed haunts. Of
the artists the old ladies disapproved, without a dissenting voice. It
seemed a "shaller" proceeding to sit out there in the hot sun for no
result save a wash of unreal colors on a white ground, or a few hasty
lines indicating no solid reality; but the photographers were their
constant delight, and they rejoiced in forming themselves into groups
upon, the green, to be "took" and carried away with the house.

One royal winter's day, there was a directors' meeting in the great
south room, the matron's parlor, a sprat bearing the happy charm of
perfect loyalty to the past, with its great fireplace, iron dogs and
crane, its settle and entrancing corner cupboards. The hard-working