They were pathetically privileged there to a moment of the
free interplay of youthful interests and emotions which the Spanish
convention forbids less in the churches than anywhere else.
The Spanish religion is, in fact, kind to the young in many ways, and on
our way to the cathedral we had paused at a shrine of the Virgin in
appreciation of her friendly offices to poor girls wanting husbands;
they have only to drop a pin inside the grating before her and draw a
husband, tall for a large pin and short for a little one; or if they can
make their offering in coin, their chances of marrying money are good.
The Virgin is always ready to befriend her devotees, and in the
cathedral near that beautiful choir screen she has a shrine above the
stone where she alighted when she brought a chasuble to St. Ildefonso
(she owed him something for his maintenance of her Immaculate Conception
long before it was imagined a dogma) and left the print of her foot in
the pavement. The fact is attested by the very simple yet absolute
inscription:
Quando la Reina del Cielo
Puso los pies en el suelo,
En esta piedra los puso,
or as my English will have it:
When the Queen of Heaven put
Upon the earth her foot,
She put it on this stone
and left it indelible there, so that now if you thrust your finger
through the grille and touch the place you get off three hundred years
of purgatory: not much in the count of eternity, but still something.
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