a the gardener, and in the cloister wandering round me was
he who afterwards became my husband. We saw a handsome sergeant come
into the summer-house with a great jingle of spurs, a sword on his
arm, and a helmet with a tail just like the Jews on the Monument. It
was you, Don Sebastian, who had come to Toledo to visit your uncle
the beneficiary, and who would not leave without visiting your friend
Tomasita. How handsome and smart you were. I do not say it to flatter
you, it is truth. You looked like being a rogue with the girls! And I
still remember you said something to me about how pretty and fresh you
thought me after so many years absence. You don't mind my reminding
you of this? Really? It was only a soldier's gallant jests. How many
would say that now? When you left, I said to my brother-in-law, 'He
has put on the uniform for good and all; it is useless his uncle, the
beneficiary, thinking of making a priest of him.'"

"It was a youthful sally," said the cardinal smiling, remembering with
pride the dashing sergeant of dragoons. "In Spain, there are only
three professions worthy of a man--the sword, the Church and the toga.
My blood was hot and I wanted to be a soldier, but unluckily I fell on
times of peace, my promotion would have been very slow, and in order
not to embitter my uncle's last years, I renewed my studies and turned
to the Church. One can serve God or one's country as well in one place
as another, but, believe me, very often in spite of the pomp of my
cardinalate I think with envy of that soldier you saw. What happy
times they were! Even now the sword draws me. When I see the cadets I
would gladly exchange with some of them, giving them my crozier and
cross. And possibly I might have done better than any of them! Ah! if
only the great times of the reconquest could return when the prelates
went out to fight the Moors! What a great Archbishop of Toledo I
should have been!"

And Don Sebastian drew up his fat old body, and proudly stretched out
his arms with all the remains of his former strength.

"You have always been a strong man," said the gardener's widow. "I say
very often to some of the priests who speak of you and criticise you:
'You must not trifle with His Eminence, he is quite capable of going
one day into the choir--some he likes and some he does not--and
driving you all out at one fell swoop.'"

"I have more than once been tempted to do so," said the prelate
firmly, his eyes flashing wit