"Why should I be so environed," he soliloquized, "while all the rest of the world are happy and free? No, not all; my people are neither," he quickly added, as they rose up before his mind's eye in reproval. "Yet," he further added, "their lot is preferable to mine." Shaking off his unhappy feelings, he performed his morning ablutions and clothed himself preparatory to going into the presence of his hostess. When he appeared at the door of his apartment he found a servant there, who had been sent to conduct him to the eating-room, where breakfast was waiting, and, better still, the little girl, now grown to woman's stature, with whom he had romped and raced the hillsides over a hundred times in the years of his happy boyhood, also waiting to receive him. But how different were their positions and circumstances at this meeting. Not children, but man and woman, stood face to face. "Itlza!" exclaimed he, with surprise and admiration depicted on his countenance and expressed in his voice, advancing toward her at the same time. A momentary confusion came over the maiden, and she stood undecided how to act. The last time she saw him he was only a youth and she scarcely more than a child. Now he was a great, strong man, with intellectual superiority stamped on every feature, and dignity in every motion, while she had bloomed into a coy and blushing young woman, a sufficient cause for confusion in one so little acquainted with the world as she. He saw her embarrassment, and coming close to her, said: "Has the little girl I once knew so well, and for whom I held a most tender regard, but who has now grown away from me, no word of welcome for her childhood friend?" This gave Itlza time to recover, and she began a reply by saying: "Our noble prince--" "No, no; Itlza! address me not thus," he said, quickly interrupting her, and speaking earnestly. "I pray you, call me anything but that in this hour of a renewal of our friendship. I like it not, coming from your lips." "Hualcoyotl, then, if it please you," she replied, smiling at his earnestness. "That is better, for it has in it the echo of a friendship I do not forget," said he, interrupting her again; "a friendship, the memory of which is very dear to me." "You are very good, not to have forgotten your little friend after so long a time," she replied. "Since I realize the change which has come to both of us, it seems like a dream to have known you. Hualcoyotl, who stands before me now, is not the Hualcoyotl I remember; he was only a boy. When I saw you enter, confusion came upon me; I knew not whether I should salute you as our prince, or greet you as an old friend." She had recovered her composure, and spoke with ease. "Your surprise was not greater than my own when I beheld, not my little girl friend of other years, but a pretty young woman waiting to receive me," was his gallant reply.