A Lovely Child, With Pensive Blue Eyes Fringed With
Long Lashes, And The Slow Sweet Smile Of A Madonna, Sat Near Us And Sang
To A Soft, Monotonous Air A War-Song Of The Carlists.
Her beauty soon
attracted the artistic eyes of La Senora, and we learned she was named
Francisca, and her baby brother, whose flaxen head lay heavily on her
shoulder, was called Jesus Mary.
She asked, Would we like to go into the
church? She knew the sacristan and would go for him. She ran away like a
fawn, the tow head of little Jesus tumbling dangerously about. She
reappeared in a moment; she had disposed of mi nino, as she called it,
and had found the sacristan. This personage was rather disappointing. A
sacristan should be aged and mouldy, clothed in black of a decent
shabbiness. This was a Toledan swell in a velvet shooting-jacket, and
yellow peg-top trousers. However, he had the wit to confine himself to
turning keys, and so we gradually recovered from the shock of the
shooting-jacket.
The church forms one great nave, divided into four vaults enriched with
wonderful stone lace-work. A superb frieze surrounds the entire nave,
bearing in great Gothic letters an inscription narrating the foundation
of the church. Everywhere the arms of Castile and Arragon, and the
wedded ciphers of the Catholic kings. Statues of heralds start
unexpectedly out from the face of the pillars. Fine as the church is, we
cannot linger here long.
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