Going along the outside of the choir, the Tato led Gabriel to the front opposite the door del Perdon.  Under the great medallion, which serves as a back to the Mount Tabor, the work of Berruguete, opens the little chapel of the Virgin of the Star.  “Look well at that image, uncle.  Is there another like it in all the world?  She is a courtezan, a siren who would drive men mad if she only fluttered her eyelids.”

For Gabriel this was no new discovery; from his childhood he had known that beautiful and sensual figure, with its worldly smile, its rounded outlines, and its eyes with their expression of wanton gaiety as though she were just going to dance.

The child in her arms was also laughing and placing his hand on the bosom of the beautiful woman, as though he intended to tear the covering from her breast.  The image of painted stone, stuffed and gilt, wore a blue mantle strewn with stars, from whence its name.

“Even you, who have read so much, uncle, may possibly not know the history of this chapel, which is far more ancient than the Cathedral.  The woolstaplers, carders, and weavers of Toledo had their patroness here long before the church was built, and they only gave up their right to the ground on the condition that they should be entire masters of the chapel, and do in it whatever they pleased and in all this piece of the Cathedral as far as those nearest pillars.  Oh! the trouble this wrought!  On the days they held their feasts to the Virgin they never paid any heed to the canons in the choir, and they greatly disturbed all the offices with ’rabeles,’[1] lutes and disorderly songs.  If the canons begged them to be silent, they replied that it was they in the choir who ought to keep silence, considering that they were in their own chapel, which was far more ancient than the Cathedral.  Did you know this, uncle?”

[Footnote 1:  An ancient instrument with three strings, played with a bow.]

“Yes, I remember it now.  The Archbishop Valero Loza brought a suit against them at the beginning of the eighteenth century; you can see his tomb at the foot of the altar.  He lost his suit, and died from disappointment.  He desired to be buried in that place, so that the insolent wool merchants should trample on him in death, even as they had vanquished him in his lifetime.  The haughtiness of these ecclesiastical princes drove them to the proudest humility.  But is this all you wished to show me?”

“You shall see better things than this.  Let us say good-bye to the Virgin.  But do look at her!  What a face!  What alluring eyes!  The beautiful woman!  I spend hours looking at her; she is my sweetheart.  Oh! the many nights I have dreamt of her.”

They walked on a little towards the great doorway of the Cathedral, so as to obtain a better view of the exterior face of the choir.  Above the three hollows or chapels that pierce it runs a frieze of ancient relievos, the work of some obscure mediaeval artist.  Gabriel recognised these coarse sculptures as being contemporaneous with the Puerta del Reloj, and by far the most ancient work in the Cathedral.