Page:Saint Theresa of Avila (Gilman 1889).djvu/17

Rh the stern, pious Alfonso, saw the light, then, in Avila, the city of “Saints and stones,” on the twenty-eighth day of March, 1515.

It is not difficult for us to picture the saint’s native town, for it stands to-day with its round granite towers, its nine gates, and its mediæval fortifications, one of the few impressive monuments which recall vividly the half-civilized, highly-colored life of the sixteenth century. The streets of Avila are still full of curious old houses much like the one in which little Theresa was born. Her father’s coat-of-arms—a castle on fire, surmounted by a cross—was sculptured over the door of the house. Above it projected a balcony, then, as now, the favorite resort of pet quails. The principal entrance led into a vast hall, on either side of which were chambers never used except for a birth, a marriage, or a burial. On the opposite side of the hall was a door communicating with the body of the house, and facing it a door leading to a gallery that opened upon a spacious yard in which were the bakehouses and ovens. Beyond this were two great rooms, one being used as the kitchen of