ay, and besides, I wrote a little thing last night."

The anarchist nodded affirmatively, quite ready to serve as
entertainment for this pariah of art, who saw in him his only
audience, and who took so much kindly trouble to interest him.

While the services lasted Gabriel would walk alone in the cloisters;
all the men were in the Cathedral, except the shoemaker, who was
mending the giants. Tired of the chattering of the women who stood
at the doors of the Claverias, he would go up to the dwelling of the
bell-ringer, his old companion in arms, or he would go down into the
garden by the remarkable staircase del Tenorio when it was open, or by
the archbishop's archway crossing the street.

He delighted in passing an hour under the trees; he found in the
garden as many memories of his family as in the "habitacion" upstairs.
Besides, he was tired of always finding his walks bounded by stone
walls, which reminded him of his prison, and he wanted the movement of
the vegetation caressed by the breeze to foster the illusion that he
was living in complete liberty in the open country.

In the arbour, where he had formerly so often seen his father, infirm
and crippled with age, directing his eldest son, who received all his
orders impassively, he would now meet his Aunt Tomasa, knitting her
stockings, and watching with vigilant eyes the work of a boy whom she
had taken into her service.

Gabriel's aunt was by far the most important person in the Claverias;
her word was worth quite as much as Don Antolin's, the Silver Stick
was afraid of her, bending before the powerful protection that they
all guessed stood behind the poor old woman. In the days when her
father, Gabriel's maternal grandfather, was sacristan in the Cathedral
the functions of acolyte were exercised by a small boy, nephew of one
of the beneficiaries of the Cathedral, who ended by paying for his
education in the seminary. This little acolyte of half a century
before was now a prince of the church, and the Cardinal Archbishop of
Toledo. Old Tomasa and he had known each other as children, fighting
over trifles in the upper cloister, or playing tricks on the beggars
who sat at the Puerta del Mollete. The imposing Don Sebastian, whose
look alone made the Chapter and all the clergy in the diocese tremble,
became happy, fraternal and confidential, when now and then in the
evenings he saw Tomasa. She was the only living reminder of his
childhood in the Cathedral. The ol