Part 8 (1/2)
At the fiesta, music and song filled the air. Lanterns were strung from poles. Booths lined the square. Nuts and fruits and cakes were sold.
There were small wagons where men fried long, golden cakes like the doughnut.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A FIELD NEAR CORDOBA]
Shawls, laces, paintings, toys, and fans for sale. Merry-go-rounds, sideshows, dancing, and more dancing. Pilar and her friends whirled about, kicking their legs, pointing their toes, rolling their eyes, and rippling their castanets.
At last, tired, but filled with rhythm and harmony, the group started for home.
After Pilar had left the fiesta, however, somebody asked about her. That somebody was a great dancing master.
He asked, ”Who was that little beauty in the white costume trimmed with green? She played a pair of golden-voiced castanets. Where does she live? I should like to have her as my pupil.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: A DOUGHNUT STAND]
But n.o.body in Triana knew where Pilar lived, and, of course, her name is a common one in Spain.
On the way home, Pilar's spirits began to fall. She began to think of having to part with her precious castanets. How she wished that there might be some other way of--!
Suddenly she remembered Tony--Tony, the boy who had played bullfight with Juan years ago. It was weeks now since Juan had sent the old red cape to America and had written to Tony.
Juan had said that Tony was rich and generous and that he would help Pilar and her grandfather because he would remember Pilar's mother. But Pilar had begun to wonder whether Tony really would.
When she reached home, all the excitement of the fiesta had worn away.
She was very unhappy. Tomorrow she must give up the castanets. Juan had said that he could sell them to a dancing master, who paid handsomely for antiques.
Pilar started to undress. She unpinned the brooch that fastened her costume at the throat. And all at once, her face lit up with a wonderful new idea.
She would take this brooch to Juan tomorrow. It was her own, part of her dancing costume. But she would far rather part with it than with her mother's castanets.
The brooch was a small painting called a miniature. It was the likeness of young Prince Alfonso, the brother of Queen Isabella of Spain.
Pilar hurried off to bed. And while she sleeps, let us listen to the ”Mystery of the Young Prince.”
CHAPTER IX
THE MYSTERY OF THE YOUNG PRINCE
Alfonso was only a boy. But some day he would be king, for he was next in line to his brother, King Henry. After him came his sister, Isabella, a beautiful little girl, earnest and thoughtful.
Alfonso felt himself to be Isabella's knight and protector. He had learned to ride and to use his sword like a true Spanish cavalier.
One day at twilight Isabella sat at the window, embroidering a Moorish design upon a bit of gold cloth. Alfonso, his studies over for the day, was reading to her.
Better than anything else, the Prince loved to read--which may have been the reason for what happened later--at least, for what is supposed to have happened. For n.o.body rightly knows the truth of the bitter story.
As the two children sat together, enjoying the happiest moment of their day, one of the King's spies secretly watched and listened.
He heard the Princess Isabella say, ”Enough of that for now, Alfonso.