As the children gazed at the beautiful altar covered with flowers, there came the sound of music,--violins, flutes, flageolets, and hautboys all making a quaint harmony,--and with the music was mingled the sound of youthful voices, fresh and sweet, and a band of boys entered the chancel, and gliding down the altar steps danced quietly, singing as they danced. Their bodies swayed to and fro in time to the music, at first slowly, then, as the time quickened, castanets click-clicked with the other sounds, and the boys moved faster and faster, still in perfect time, yet not with wild abandon, but rather with dignified respect for the place. They were quaintly dressed in the court costumes of the Middle Ages; on their heads were big Spanish hats, turned up at one side with a sweeping blue feather, a mantle of light blue was over one shoulder, their vests were of white satin, their hose and shoes of white. The boys danced on until the great bells of the Giralda rang out, and then they vanished, the music growing softer and softer, until its last strains sounded far away, like a floating wave of heavenly harmony. "How pretty the dance was," said little Juanita, as they walked home from the service. "Why do they dance in church?" "The Holy Scriptures say that David danced before the Lord," her mother answered, "so perhaps that is the reason the Sevillians think this is a form of worship, but you must ask your cousins to tell you how it was first done." "Do tell me, Mariquita," said the little girl, and her cousin said, "I do not know how it happened at first, but it has been done ever since the Moors were here in Sevilla. Only once in hundreds of years has it been stopped, and then an archbishop said it was not right to have dancing in church. He made every one very angry, for the people said, 'What our fathers did is good enough for us!' So they went to the Pope, and he said that he could not tell unless he saw the dance. So the boys and the musicians were taken to Rome, and there danced before the Holy Father, who said, 'I see no harm in this, any more than in the children's hosannas before Our Lord when He entered Jerusalem. Let them have their dance so long as the clothes which they wear may last.' Then they came back and so determined were they to continue it for ever, that they never let the clothes wear out to this day. If one piece of a suit shall be worn it is so quickly mended or repaired that no suit has ever worn out all at once, so that these are the same suits as those worn long ago." "I am so glad they still have it," said Fernando, "for I wouldn't have missed seeing it to-day for anything." CHAPTER VIII. RAINY DAYS "MAMMA, would you allow me to go to the bull-fight with father and Pablo?" asked Fernando next day.