Two young girls sat in a high though very narrow room of the old Moorishpalace to which King Philip the Second had brought his court when hefinally made Madrid his capital. It was in the month of November, in theafternoon, and the light was cold and grey, for the two tall windows lookeddue north, and a fine rain had been falling all the morning. The stones inthe court were drying now, in patches, but the sky was like a smooth vaultof cast lead, closing over the city that lay to the northward, dark, wetand still, as if its life had shrunk down under ground, away from thebitter air and the penetrating damp.
The room was scantily furnished, but the few objects it contained, thecarved table, the high-backed chairs and the chiselled bronze brazier, borethe stamp of the time when art had not long been born again. On the wallsthere were broad tapestries of bold design, showing green forests populatedby all sorts of animals in stiff attitudes, staring at one another inperpetual surprise. Below the tapestry a carved walnut wainscoting wentround the room, and the door was panelled and flanked by fluted doorpostsof the same dark wood, on which rested corbels fashioned into curlingacanthus leaves, to hold up the cornice, which itself made a high shelfover the door. Three painted Italian vases, filled with last summer's roseleaves and carefully sealed lest the faint perfume should be lost, stoodsymmetrically on this projection, their contents slowly ripening for futureuse. The heap of white ashes, under which the wood coals were still alivein the big brazier, diffused a little warmth through the chilly room.
The two girls were sitting at opposite ends of the table. The one held along goose-quill pen, and before her lay several large sheets of papercovered with fine writing. Her eyes followed the lines slowly, and fromtime to time she made a correction in the manuscript. As she read, her lipsmoved to form words, but she made no sound. Now and then a faint smile lentsingular beauty to her face, and there was more light in her eyes, too;then it disappeared again, and she read on, carefully and intently, as ifher soul were