The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-24

Guadalquivir, a site even more beautiful than the region around Seville, which men called the earthly paradise.
 Gil Bias, believing that he had been cured of all ambition. accepted the mod- est gift gratefully and begged Scipio to never would part from the one true friend whom he had found in diversity. Scipio, who had tasted the earths sour pleasure like Gil Bias, accepted gladly, and the two mounted their mules and started on their way to their new home.
 They made a circuit to enable Gil Bias to visit his parents. His soiourn in prison had given him time to consider his in- gratitude. There is nothing so conclusive to repentance as a disastrous ending to an ill-chosen road. Therefore, he, who had forgotten his people so easily while he was rich. remembered them now that he was poor.
 He arrived in Oviedo to find his old father dying from illness and want and his mother little better. When the old man breathed his last Gil Bias dipped deeply into what was left of his purse and paid for a funeral such as Oviedo never had seen before.
 His ill-timed generosity cost him dear. It needed only this belated generosity to bring the anger of the villagers to the fighting point. On his return from the grave they attacked him with stones and clubs, crying: This court favorite of q day has money enough to bury his father, but he had none to buy him bread" At ging his mother to speak to the people and assure them that he had done well by them.
 He begged his mother to go with him to his country seat but the old woman declined, preferring to live and die where she had been born He arranged to pay her hundred pistoles annually for her support, and turned his back on Oviedo without regret.
 Gil Bias now thought that he would spend the rest of his life as a country dweller, far from all further troubles; but after a few months the King died, and he was bidden again to court. He followed the call only reluctantly, but was tempted to stay when he found that the ungrateful Duke of Lerma had been dismissed and that his knowledge of that nobleman's methods was of value to his successor, the Duke of Olivarez
 Though he succumbed again to the lure of the court, he did not again succumb to the new temptations to amass wea. ., but kept both his balance and his hon. esty so well that advancement came more quickly as a result of his faithfulness than 1t had come before as result of his intriguing.
 It fell to him to do the King a great service in the matter of improving tbs national finances, for his intimate knowl- edge of the world of leeches and van,- pires that sucked the blood from tba treasury made 1t no difficult matter for nm 10 devise economies Thus he spent some years in the full glow of royal favor and at last he was honored witb patent of nobility.
 He used his influence this time with more discretion. and obtained favors for his friends instead of selling them to strangers. At last he succeeded fin ob- taining for his old patron, Don Alfonso. the appointment of viceroy of Aragon. mus the peasant, the son of chamber naio' became king-maker-an achieve ment that in earlier years would have completely turned his head.
 ' It was fortunate that it did not have this result now, for suddenly he experi- enced once more what slight tenure one has who hangs to the train of a royal robe. The Queen succeeded in gaining favor for her supporters and GiI Bias was sent into exile with the party that had been in power.
 He remained faithful to the Duke of Olivarez in his misfortune and was re- warded with a bequest of ten thousand pistoles when that nobeman died. brok- enhearted
 Then Gil Bias said farewell once mora and for the last time to all desire for greatness. He turned his mules head toward the Guadalquiver, and as he rode homeward thought of all that had passed in his life-of all the meanness and shame that he had seen in others and practiced in himself; of all the crueties, wickedness and pains that men inflicted on their fellow men and on their own per- sons to grasp at fieeting gleam of splendor.
 He thanked God that he had been per- mitted to pass through 1t all and arrive at point where he could regret sincerely, and have time for practical repentance. And many years safterward, when he had long been married to the sister of a poor neighboring grandee, and looked around on his blooming family and on that of Scipio, who never left him, he was able to say that at last Don Bias de Santillane was truly happy.
 Next Sundays one-page classic will be "Rasselas," by Samuel Johnson.