and equipages that choked up the way. There was a brilliant
entertainment at the French embassy; and thither flocked, all the rank
and chivalry of Madrid. Calderon drew down the blind and hastily
enjoined silence on Beatriz. It was some minutes before the driver
extricated himself from the throng; and then, as if to make amends for
the delay, he put his horses to their full speed, and carefully selected
the most obscure and solitary thoroughfares. At length, the carriage
entered the range of suburbs which still at this day the traveller passes
on his road from Madrid to France. The horses stopped before a lonely
house that stood a little apart from the road, and which from the fashion
of its architecture appeared of considerable antiquity. The stranger
descended and knocked twice at the door: it was opened by an old man,
whose exaggerated features, bended frame, and long beard, proclaimed him
of the race of Israel. After a short and whispered parley, the stranger
returned to Beatriz, gravely assisted her from the carriage, and, leading
her across the threshold, and up a flight of rude stairs, dimly lighted,
entered a chamber richly furnished. The walls were hung with stuffs of
gorgeous colouring and elaborate design. Pedestals of the whitest marble
placed at each corner of the room supported candelabra of silver. The
sofas and couches were of the heavy but sumptuous fashion which then
prevailed in the palaces of France and Spain; and of which Venice (the
true model of the barbaric decorations with which Louis the Fourteenth
corrupted the taste of Paris) was probably the original inventor. In an
alcove, beneath a silken canopy, was prepared a table, laden with wines,
fruits, and viands; and altogether the elegance and luxury that
characterised the apartment were in strong and strange contrast with the
half-ruined exterior of the abode, the gloomy and rude approach to the
chamber, and the mean and servile aspect of the Jew, who stood, or rather
cowered by the door, as if waiting for further orders. With a wave of
the hand the stranger dismissed the Israelite; and then, approaching