, and, pretending to
pursue him, drove him from chapel to chapel, finally rounding him up
where he could give him some good sound whacks. The dismal howlings
disturbed the singing of the canons, and the Tato laughed more than
ever to see behind the iron railing of the choir, the angry gesture of
the good Esteban threatening him with his wooden staff.

"Uncle," said the depraved Perrero one evening, "you, who think you
know the Cathedral so well, have you ever seen the lively things in
it?"

The wink of his eye, and the gesture accompanying the words showed
that the things might very well be more than lively.

"I am always very much interested," he went on, "with the jokes the
ancients allowed themselves. Come along, uncle, it will amuse you for
a little; you, like all those who think they know the Cathedral, will
have passed many times by these things without noticing them."

Going along the outside of the choir, the Tato led Gabriel to the
front opposite the door del Perdon. Under the great medallion, which
serves as a back to the Mount Tabor, the work of Berruguete, opens the
little chapel of the Virgin of the Star. "Look well at that image,
uncle. Is there another like it in all the world? She is a courtezan,
a siren who would drive men mad if she only fluttered her eyelids."

For Gabriel this was no new discovery; from his childhood he had known
that beautiful and sensual figure, with its worldly smile, its rounded
outlines, and its eyes with their expression of wanton gaiety as
though she were just going to dance.

The child in her arms was also laughing and placing his hand on the
bosom of the beautiful woman, as though he intended to tear the
covering from her breast. The image of painted stone, stuffed and
gilt, wore a blue mantle strewn with stars, from whence its name.

"Even you, who have read so much, uncle, may possibly not know the
history of this chapel, which is far more ancient than the Cathedral.
The woolstaplers, carders, and weavers of Toledo had their patroness
here long before the church was built, and they only gave up their
right to the ground on the condition that they should be entire
masters of the chapel, and do in it whatever they pleased and in all
this piece of the Cathedral as far as those nearest pillars. Oh! the
trouble this wrought! On the days they held their feasts to the Virgin
they never paid any heed to the canons in the choir, and they greatly
disturbed all the offices wi