he house
inhabited by Militona, unless we designate it as the order composite.
Its front was characterised by a total absence of symmetry; the walls,
sadly out of the perpendicular, seemed about to fall, and would
doubtless have done so but for the support of sundry iron curves and
crosses, which held the bricks together, and of two adjacent houses of
more solid construction. From the lower part of the ricketty fabric the
plaster had peeled off in large scales, exposing the foundation wall;
whilst the upper stories, better preserved, exhibited traces of old pink
paint, as if the poor house blushed for shame of its miserable
condition. Near the roof of broken and disorderly tiles, which marked
out a brown festoon against the bright blue sky, was a little window,
surrounded by a recent coat of white plaster. On the right of this
casement hung a cage, containing a quail: on the left another cage, of
minute dimensions, decorated with red and yellow beads, served as palace
to a cricket. A jar of porous earth, suspended by the ears to a string,
and covered with a pearly moisture, held water cooling in the evening
breeze, and from time to time allowed a few drops to fall upon two pots
of sweet basil that stood beneath it. The window was that of Militona's
apartment.

If the reader will venture to ascend with us this dark and broken
staircase, we will follow Militona as she trips lightly up it on her
return from the bull-fight; whilst old Aldonsa tolls behind, calling
upon the saints for succour, and clinging to the greasy rope that does
duty as a banister. On reaching the topmost landing-place, the pretty
manola raised a fragment of matting that hung before one of those
many-panelled doors common in Madrid, took her key and let herself in.
The interior of the room was humble enough. Whitewash replaced paper; a
scratched mirror--which reflected very imperfectly the charming
countenance of its owner--a plaster cast of St Antony, flanked by two
blue glass vases containing artificial flowers, a deal table, two
chairs, and a little bed covered with a muslin quilt, composed the
entire furniture. We must not forget an image of Our Lady, rudely
painted and gilt on glass, engravings of the fight of the second of May,
of the funeral of Daoiz and Velarde, and of a _picador_ on horseback; a
tambourine, a guitar, and a branch of palm, brought from church on the
previous Palm Sunday. Such was Militona's room; and although it
contained but