cross; and although he was so infirm that he was obliged to be almost carried by the men on whom he leaned, he insisted upon prostrating himself three times upon the ground, in the manner of the friars, before he approached the blessed symbol with his lips. The feast of St. Matthew, his birthday--a day of great things in his life,--he always celebrated with peculiar devotion. He appeared at mass, in a dress of ceremony, and wearing the collar of the Fleece; and at the time of the offertory, he went forward, and expressed his gratitude to God by a large donation. The church was thronged with strangers; and the crowd who could not gain admittance was so great, that one sermon was preached outside, whilst another was being pronounced before the emperor and his household within. With the friars, his hosts, Charles lived on the most familiar and friendly footing. When the visitors of the order paid their triennial visit of inspection to Yuste, they represented to him, with all respect, that his majesty himself was the only inmate of the convent with whom they had any fault to find; and they entreated him to discontinue those benefactions which he was in the habit of bestowing on the fraternity, and which the rule of St. Jerome did not allow his children to receive. He knew all the fathers by name and by sight, and frequently conversed with them, as well as with the prior. One of his favorites was a lay-brother, called Alonso Mudarra, once a man of rank and family in the world, and now working out his own salvation in the humble post of cook to the convent. This worthy had an only daughter, who did not share her father's contempt for mundane things. When she came with her husband to visit him at Yuste, Fray Alonso, arrayed in his dirtiest apron, thus addressed her: "Daughter, behold my gala apparel; obedience is now my treasure and my pride; for you, in your silks and vanities, I entertain profound pity." So saying, he returned to his kitchen, and would never see her more: an effort of holiness to which he appears to owe his place in the chronicles of the order. The emperor was conversing one day with his confessor, Regla, when that priest chose to speak, in the mitre-shunning cant of his cloth, of the great reluctance which he had felt in accepting a post of such weighty responsibility. "Never fear," said Charles, somewhat maliciously, and as if conscious that he was dealing with a hypocrite; "before I left Flanders, four doctors were engaged for a whole year in easing my conscience; so you have nothing to answer for but what happens here."