m, were of the hardest
granite, which from age had taken a golden colour, and which protected
and supported the airy delicacy of the interior. The two sorts of
stone made a great contrast in the appearance of the Cathedral, dark
and reddish outside, white and delicate inside.

The seminarist found examples of every sort of architecture that had
flourished in the Peninsula. The primitive Gothic was found in the
earliest doorways, the florid in those del Perdon and de los Leones,
and the Arab architecture showed its graceful horseshoe arches in the
triforium running round the whole abside of the choir, which was the
work of Cisneros, who, though he burnt the Moslem books, introduced
their style of architecture into the heart of the Christian temple.
The plateresque style showed its fanciful grace in the door of the
cloister, and even the chirruguesque showed at its best in the famous
lanthorn of Tome, which broke the vaulting behind the high altar in
order to give light to the abside.

In the evenings of the vacation Gabriel would leave the seminary,
and wander about the Cathedral till the hour at which its doors were
closed. He delighted in walking through the naves and behind the high
altar, the darkest and most silent spot in the whole church. Here
slept a great part of the history of Spain. Behind the locked gates of
the chapel of the kings, guarded by the stone heralds on pedestals,
lay the kings of Castille in their tombs, their effigies crowned, in
golden armour, praying, with their swords by their sides. He would
stop before the chapel of Santiago, admiring through the railings of
its three pointed arches the legendary saint, dressed as a pilgrim,
holding his sword on high, and tramping on Mahomedans with his
war-horse. Great shells and red shields with a silver moon adorned the
white walls, rising up to the vaulting, and this chapel his father,
the gardener, regarded as his own peculiar property. It was that of
the Lunas, and though some people laughed at the relationship, there
lay his illustrious progenitors, Don Alvaro and his wife, on their
monumental tombs. That of Dona Juana Pimental had at its four corners
the figures of four kneeling friars in yellow marble, who watched over
the noble lady extended on the upper part of the monument. That of
the unhappy constable of Castille was surrounded by four knights of
Santiago, wrapped in the mantle of their Order, seeming to keep guard
over their grand master, wh