ish to be?'
he would ask me, and I always gave the same answer, 'Archbishop of
Toledo.' And the good sacristan would laugh again at the certainty
with which I spoke of my hopes. Believe me, Tomasa, I thought much of
him when I was consecrated bishop, regretting his death. I should have
been delighted with his tears of joy seeing me with the mitre on my
head. I have always loved you, you are an excellent family, and have
often satisfied my hunger."

"Silence, senor, silence, and do not recall those things. I am the one
who ought to be grateful for your kindness, so simple and genuine in
spite of your rank, which comes next after the Pope. And the truth
is," added the old woman with the pride of her frankness, "that no one
is the loser. Friends like I am you can never have; like all the great
ones of the earth, you are surrounded by flatterers and rascals. If
you had remained a simple mass priest no one would have sought you
out, but Tomasa would have always been your friend, always ready to do
you a service. If I love you so much it is because you are kind and
affable, but if you had put on pride like other archbishops, I should
have kissed your ring and--'Good-bye.' The cardinal to his palace, the
gardener's widow to her garden."

The prelate received the old woman's frankness smilingly.

"You will always be Don Sebastian to me," she continued. "When you
told me not to call you Eminence or to use the same ceremonies as
other people, I was as pleased as if I had been given the mantle of
the Virgin del Sagrario. Such ceremonies would have stuck in my throat
and made me ready to cry out, 'Let him have his fill of Eminence and
Illustrious, but we have scratched each other thousands of times when
we were little, and this big thief could never see a scrap of bread or
an apricot in my hand without trying to snatch and devour it!' You may
be thankful I spoke of you as 'usted'[1] when you became a beneficiary
of the Cathedral, for, after all, it would not do to 'thou' a priest
as if he were an acolyte."

[Footnote 1: Contraction of _vuestra merced_--your worship.]

Silence fell on the two old people, their eyes wandered tenderly over
the garden, as if each tree or arcade covered with foliage contained
some memory.

"Do you know what I have just remembered," said Tomasa. "I remember
that we saw each other just here many many years ago, at least
forty-eight or fifty. I was with my poor elder sister who had just
married Lun