I wondered how the Turkish Minister liked those tapestries, as his stooped-back Excellency passed in conference with a Chinese mandarin, who must have studied his costume from a teacup. For we had all been hustled into rows again to make that human lane through which the Royalties and the Reverends returned from their devotions. I was facing a quaint old tapestry of Christ enthroned in glory, with the beasts of the Apocalypse climbing over Him like pet kittens, and this so distracted my attention that I omitted to ask the amiable Infanta Isabel, who would, I am sure, have told anybody anything, what had taken place. But I read it all in the _Epocha_ that evening--how her Majesty with her own august hands had fitted the red hat to the Nuncio's tonsured head, and how the new-made cardinal had addressed her in a grateful oration, praising her virtues as manifested in "the double character of queen and mother, an example rich in those peculiar gifts by which your Royal Grace has won the veneration and love of the noble and chivalrous Spanish people, the especial affection of the Father of the Faithful, and the respect and sympathy of all the world." For her and for the youthful monarch of Spain he invoked the favor of Heaven, and uttered a fervent hope that the cup of bitterness which this most Catholic nation had bowed herself to drink might be blessed to her in a renewal of strength and a reconquest of her ancient preëminence among the peoples of the earth.
The most significant expression of "new Spain" that I encountered in Madrid was a mass meeting--a rare and novel feature in Spanish public life. I blundered upon it as foolishly as one well could. The second day of July was the first anniversary of the founding of a daring Madrid weekly, the _Vida Nueva_, to which, attracted by its literary values, as well as its political courage, I had subscribed. The sheet is usually issued Sunday, but as I was on the point of going out one Saturday afternoon my _Vida Nueva_ arrived, accompanied by two non-committal tickets. They gave entrance to the _Frontón Central_, "only that and nothing more." I called one of the pretty señoritas of the household into council, and she sagely decided that these were tickets to _pelota_, the Basque ball game, played in one or another of the various Madrid halls almost every summer afternoon. It seemed a little too considerate in the _Vida Nueva_ to provide for the recreation of its subscribers, but I was growing accustomed to surprises of Spanish courtesy, and tucked the tickets away in a safe corner. The folded newspaper rustled and whispered, and finally fluttered to my feet, but I was eager to be off, and, after the blind fashion of mortals, put it by.