aven, serious of face and shapely of limb. They
were unaffectedly professional, and the lady made no pretense of not
being a leading lady. One could see that she was the kindest creature in
the world, and that she took a genuine pleasure in her huge, practicable
eyes. At the other end of the room a Spanish family--father, mother,
and small children, down to some in arms--were dining and the children
wailing as Spanish children will, regardless of time and place; and when
the nurse brought one of the disconsolate infants to be kissed by
the leading lady one's heart went out to her for the amiability and
abundance of her caresses. The mere sight of their warmth did something
to supply the defect of steam in the steam-heating apparatus, but when
one got beyond their radius there was nothing for the shivering traveler
except to wrap himself in the down quilt of his bed and spread his
steamer-rug over his knees till it was time to creep under both of them
between the glacial sheets.

We were sorry we had not got tickets for the leading lady's public
performance; it could have been so little more public; but we had not,
and there was nothing else in Burgos to invite the foot outdoors
after dinner. From my own knowledge I cannot yet say the place was not
lighted; but my sense of the tangle of streets lying night long in a
rich Gothic gloom shall remain unimpaired by statistics. Very possibly
Burgos is brilliantly lighted with electricity; only they have not got
the electricity on, as in our steam-heated hotel they had not got the
steam on.

VIII

We had authorized our little interpreter to engage tickets for us by the
mail-train the next afternoon for Valladolid; he pretended, of course,
that the places could be had only by his special intervention, and by
telegraphing for them to the arriving train. We accepted his romantic
theory of the case, and paid the bonus due the railroad agent in the
hotel for his offices in the matter; we would have given anything, we
were so eager to get out of Burgos before we were frozen up there. I
do not know that we were either surprised or pained to find that our
Chilian friends should have got seats in the same car without anything
of our diplomacy, by the simple process of showing their tickets. I
think our little interpreter was worth everything he cost, and more. I
would not have lost a moment of his company as he stood on the platform
with me, adding one artless invention to anot