The one who was interesting to him was the other one, a little further on who was painted in a small picture.
Dona Constanza had had leprosy--an infirmity that in those days was not permitted to Empresses--so Santa Barbara had miraculously cured her devotee.

In order to perpetuate this event, Santa Barbara was depicted on the canvas as a lady dressed in a full skirt and slashed sleeves, and at her feet was the _basilisa_ in the dress of a Valencian peasant arrayed in great jewels.

In vain Don Esteban affirmed that this picture had been painted centuries after the death of the Empress.

The child's imagination vaulted disdainfully over such difficulties.

Just as she appeared on the canvas, Dona Constanza must have been--flaxen-haired, with great black eyes, exceedingly handsome and a little inclined to stoutness, perhaps, as was becoming to a woman accustomed to trailing robes of state and who had consented to disguise herself as a country-woman, merely because of her piety.
The image of the Empress obsessed his childish thoughts.