to them. Canons, beneficiaries, archbishops passed; they gained the
appointment, died, and others came in their places. It was a constant
procession of new faces, of masters who came from every corner of
Spain to take their seats in the choir, to die a few years afterwards,
leaving the vacancies to be filled again by other newcomers; but the
Lunas always remained at their post, as though the ancient family were
another column of the many that supported the temple. It might happen
that the archbishop who to-day was called Don Bernardo, might next
year be called Don Caspar, or again another Don Fernando. But what
seemed utterly impossible was that the Cathedral could exist without
Lunas in the garden, in the sacristy, or in the crossways of the
choir, accustomed as it had been for centuries to their services.

The gardener spoke with pride of his descent, of his noble and
unfortunate relative the constable Don Alvaro, buried like a king in
his chapel behind the high altar; of the Pope Benedict XIII., proud
and obstinate like all the rest of his family; of Don Pedro de Luna,
fifth of his name to occupy the archiepiscopal throne of Toledo, and
of other relatives not less distinguished.

"We are all from the same stem," he said with pride. "We all came
to the conquest of Toledo with the good King Alfonso VI. The only
difference has been, that some Lunas took a fancy to go and fight
the Moors, and they became lords, and conquered castles, whereas my
ancestors remained in the service of the Cathedral, like the good
Christians they were."

With the satisfaction of a duke who enumerates his ancestors, the
Señor Esteban carried back the line of the Lunas till it became misty
and was lost in the fifteenth century. His father had known Don