had once made the ancient Castilian capital splendid, but were now as
irrevocably merged in Madrid as the Arabs in Africa.




VI


Some of the palaces looked down from the narrow street along the
hillside above the cathedral, but only one of them was kept up in the
state of other days; and I could not be sure at what point this street
had ceased to be the street where our guide said every one kept cows,
and the ladies took big pitchers of milk away to sell every morning. But
I am sure those ladies could have been of noble descent only in the
farthest possible remove, and I do not suppose their cows were even
remotely related to the haughty ox-team which blocked the way in front
of the palaces and obliged xis to dismount while our carriage was lifted
round the cart. Our driver was coldly disgusted, but the driver of the
ox-team preserved a calm as perfect as if he had been an hidalgo
interested by the incident before his gate. It delayed us till the
psychological moment when the funeral of the dean was over, and we could
join the formidable party following the sacristan from chapel to chapel
in the cathedral.

We came to an agonized consciousness of the misery of this progress in
the Chapel of the Constable, where it threatened to be finally stayed by
the indecision of certain ladies of our nation in choosing among the
postal cards for sale there. By this time we had suffered much from the
wonders of the cathedral. The sacristan had not spared us a jewel or a