both of power and dignity, and he acquitted himself in it so zealously, that on the legate’s recall he was offered all sorts of ecclesiastical honors and preferment to induce him to settle in Spain. But the monk had other aspirations. The news of the death of Pius IV. had reached Madrid, and Montalto’s patron, Cardinal Alexandrino, would doubtless succeed to the papal throne. He would want assistance, and, what is more, he could repay it; and Father Montalto, rejecting the Spanish offers, hastened to Rome. He found his friend, now Pius V., mindful of his former services, and perhaps flattered by the reputation which his protégé had made in the world. He was kindly received, and immediately appointed general of his order. And now the _ci-devant_ hog-boy set to sweep the church anew, but in a different way. He no longer troubled himself with theological controversies, but punished his contumacious opponents. In four years after the accession of the new Pope he was made a bishop, and handsomely pensioned; and in the year 1570 our adventurer was admitted into the College of Cardinals. Montalto was now fifty years of age, when the will is at its proudest, and the intellectual nature smiles at the changing hair and its prophecies of physical decay. It might be supposed that the fierce inquisitor ripened into the stern and inflexible cardinal; but no such process of development took place. And truly it would have been somewhat inconvenient as matters stood; for his new associates—ranking with kings, every man of them, hog-boy and all!—were the intellectual flower of the time, deep and sagacious statesmen, immersed in a game of policy of which the tiara was the prize, and qualified for the lofty contention not more by their talents than by the blood of the Medici, the Caraffa, the Colonna, and the Frangipani, that flowed in their veins. The wild nature of Montalto appeared to be awed by the association into which he had thus been elevated. It seemed as if a vision of his stripes, and his hogs, and his besoms came back upon him, and he walked gingerly along the marble floors of the Vatican, as if alarmed at the echo. He became mild, affable, good-natured; his business was over in the world; he had nothing more to do than to enjoy. Why should he concern himself with intrigues in which he could have no possible interest? Why should he permit even his own family to disturb his dignified repose? One of his nephews, on his way to Rome to see his prodigious uncle and claim his favor, was murdered; but the cardinal, so ready in former days to punish even crimes of thought, interceded for the pardon of the assassin. The relatives who did arrive at the Mecca of their pilgrimage he lodged at an inn, and sent them home to their families the next day with a small present, telling them to trouble him no more. The only promise he made for the future was that, by-and-by, when old age and its infirmities came on, he might, perhaps, send for one