vivid green against the gray and russet of broad rolling lands. At the
top of the first hill stood the Hermitage--a small whitewashed chapel
with a square three-storied tower; over the door was a relief of the
Virgin, crowned, in worn lichened stone. The interior was very plain
with a single heavily gilt altar, over which was a painted statue,
stiff but full of a certain erect disdainful grace--again of the
Virgin. The figure was dressed in a long lace gown, full of frills and
ruffles, grey with dust and age.

"_La Virgen de la Cima_," said the baker, pointing reverently with his
thumb, after he had bent his knee before the altar. And as I glanced at
the image a sudden resemblance struck me: the gown gave the Virgin a
curiously conical look that somehow made me think of that conical black
stone, the Bona Dea, that the Romans brought from Asia Minor. Here
again was a good goddess, a bountiful one, more mother than virgin,
despite her prudish frills.... But the man was ushering us out.

"And there is no finer view than this in all Spain." With a broad sweep
of his arm he took in the village below, with its waves of roofs that
merged from green to maroon and deep crimson, broken suddenly by the
open square in front of the church; and the gray towering church,
scowling with strong lights and shadows on buttresses and pointed
windows; and the brown fields faintly sheened with green, which gave
place to the deep maroon of the turned earth of vineyards, and the
shining silver where the wind ruffled the olive-orchards; and beyond,
the rolling hills that grew gradually flatter until they sank into the
yellowish plain of Castile. As he made the gesture his fingers were
stretched wide as if to grasp all this land he was showing. His flaccid
cheeks were flushed as he turned to us; but we should see it in May, he
was saying, in May when the wheat was thick in the fields, and there
were flowers on the hills. Then the lands were beautiful and rich, in
May. And he went on to tell us of the local feast, and the great
processions of the Virgin. This year there were to be four days of the
_toros_. So many bullfights were unusual in such a small village, he
assured us. But they were rich in Almorox; the wine was the best in
Castile. Four days of _toros_, he said again; and all the people of the
country around would come to the _fiestas_, and there would be a great
pilgrimage to this Hermitage of the Virgin.... As he talked in his slow
def