I noticed that even for Spain it was beautiful, very thick,
curling, and black as night. The girl held a carnation in her hand to
put in front of the comb when the operation was completed. Another woman
suckled a baby, and several tiny children were playing about happily,
while their mothers chatted to one another, knitting.

But there was one, markedly different from the others, who sat alone
taking no notice of the scene. It was she who remained in the _patio_
when the rest followed us into the sick room, a gipsy, tall and gaunt,
with a skin of the darkest yellow. Her hair was not elaborately arranged
as that of her companions, but plainly done, drawn back stiffly from the
forehead. She sat there, erect and motionless, looking at the ground
with an unnatural stare, silent. They told me she never spoke a word
nor paid attention to the women in the court. She might have been
entirely alone. She never altered her position, but sat there,
sphinx-like, in that attitude of stony grief. She was a stranger among
the rest, and her bronzed face, her silence gave a weird impression; she
seemed to recall the burning deserts of the East and an endless past.

At last we came out, and the heavy iron door was closed behind us. What
a relief it was to be in the street again, to see the sun and the trees,
and to breathe the free air! A cart went by with a great racket, drawn
by three mules, and the cries of the driver as he cracked his whip were
almost musical; a train of donkeys passed; a man trotted by on a brown
shaggy cob, his huge panniers filled with glowing vegetables, green and
red, and in a corner was a great bunch of roses. I took long breaths of
the free air, I shook myself to get rid of those prison odours.

I offered don Felipe refreshment and we repaired to a dram-shop
immediately opposite. Two women were standing there.

'_Ole!_' said the doctor to an old toothless hag with a vicious leer.
'What are you doing here? You've not been in for some time.'

She laughed and explained that she was come to fetch her friend, a young
woman, who had been released that morning. The doctor nodded to her,
asking how long she had been in gaol.

'Two years and nine months,' she said.

And she began to laugh hysterically with tears streaming down her
cheeks.

'I don't know what I'm doing,' she cried. 'I can't understand it.'

She looked into the street with wild, yearning eyes; everything seemed
to her strange and new.

'I haven