ght of coming round to the palace this afternoon to inquire after
your health from Dona Visita."

"Hold your tongue, you fool; I have never felt better, especially
since this morning. The slap I have given to _those_ by not going into
the choir to pray with them has put me in a splendid humour, and in
order that they may thoroughly understand my meaning I have come to
see you. I wish them all to know that I am quite well, and that what
is said about my illness is untrue. I wish all in Toledo to understand
that the archbishop will not see his canons, and that he does so from
a sense of dignity, not from pride, as at the same time he can come
down to see his old friend the gardener's widow."

And the terrible old man laughed like a child to think of the
annoyance this visit would cause his Chapter.

"Do not believe, however, Tomasa," he continued, "that I have come to
see you solely for this reason. I felt sad and worried in the palace
this afternoon. Visitacion was busy with some friends from Madrid, and
I had that heartache I sometimes feel when I think of the past. I felt
that I must come and see you, more especially as it is always cool in
the Cathedral garden, whereas outside it is as hot as an oven. Ah!
Tomasa! how strong I see you! So slim and so active. You wear better
than I do; you are not wrapped in fat like this sinner, and you have
not the pains that disturb my nights. Your hair is still dark, your
teeth are well preserved, and you do not need like this old cardinal
to have a mechanism inside your mouth; but all the same, Tomasa, you
are just as old as I am. We have very few years of life left to us,
however much the Lord may wish to preserve us. What would I not give
to return to those days when I ran up to your house in my red gown in
search of your father, the sacristan, and stole your breakfast. Eh,
Tomasa?"

The two old people, forgetting social differences, recalled the past
with the friendly resignation of those advancing towards death.
Everything was the same as in their childhood--the garden, the
cloister; nothing about the Cathedral had changed.

His Eminence, closing his eyes, fancied himself once more the restless
acolyte of fifty years before; the blue spirals from his cigarette
seemed to carry his thoughts back through the interminable labyrinths
of the past.

"Do you remember how your poor father used to laugh at me? 'This boy,'
he would say in the sacristy, 'is a Sixtus V. What do you w