t phrases, cantered to their places, and came back again a
moment later to make some final arrangement--their splendid gold-inlaid
corslets and the rich caparisons of their horses looking like great
pieces of jewelry that moved hither and thither in the thin grey mist,
while the dark red and yellow uniforms of the household guards
surrounded the square on three sides with broad bands of colour. Dolores
could see her father, who commanded them and to whom the officers came
for orders, sitting motionless and erect on his big black horse--a stern
figure, with close-cut grey beard, clad all in black saving his heavily
gilded breastplate and the silk sash he wore across it from shoulder to
sword knot. She shrank back a little, for she would not have let him see
her looking down from an upper window to welcome the returning visitor.

"What is it? Do you see him? Is he there?" Inez asked the questions in a
breath, as she heard her sister move.

"No--our father is below on his horse. He must not see us." And she
moved further into the embrasure.

"You will not be able to see," said Inez anxiously. "How can you tell
me--I mean, how can you see, where you are?"

Dolores laughed softly, but her laugh trembled with the happiness that
was coming so soon.

"Oh, I see very well," she answered. "The window is wide open, you
know."

"Yes--I know."

Inez leaned back against the wall beside the window, letting her hand
drop in a hopeless gesture. The sample answer had hurt her, who could
never see, by its mere thoughtlessness and by the joy that made her
sister's voice quaver. The music grew louder and louder, and now there
came with it the sound of a great multitude, cheering, singing the march
with the trumpets, shouting for Don John; and all at once as the throng
burst from the street to the open avenue the voices drowned the clarions
for a moment, and a vast cry of triumph filled the whole air.

"He is there! He is there!" repeated Inez, leaning towards the window
and feeling for the stone sill.

But Dolores could not hear for the shouting. The clouds had lifted to
the westward and northward; and as the afternoon sun sank lower they
broke away, and the level rays drank up the gloom of the wintry day in
an instant. Dolores stood motionless before the window, undazzled, like
a statue of ivory and gold in a stone niche. With the light, as the
advancing procession sent the people before it, the trumpets rang high
and clear agai