"Indeed!" said the other, musing. "Indeed! I knew that he was near, and that we should soon meet; but I did not think to find him here. Look at me, Bartholo! look at me well! Think you that he would recognise me? Gold, and embroidery, and courtly fashions, are all laid aside; and I might be taken for the son of a mechanic, or, at best, for the child of some inferior burgher." "I knew you at once!" answered the page emphatically. "Yes, yes; but that is different," replied he whom we shall take the liberty of calling by the name he had given himself, although that name, it need scarcely be said, was assumed; "but that is different," replied Leonard de Monte. "You were prepared to know me; but I think that I am secure with all others. Why, when I look in the mirror, I hardly know myself." The dwarf gazed over the person of him who was evidently his real master, however he might, for some unexplained purposes, affect to be in the service of others--and after a moment, he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders, "It may be so indeed. Dusty, and travel-soiled, and changed, perhaps he would not know you; and were you to put on a high fraise, instead of that falling collar, it would make a greater difference still in your appearance." "Quick! get me one, then" cried the youth; "I will pass before him for an instant this very night, that his eye may become accustomed to the sight, and memory be lulled to sleep. See, too, that all be prepared for me to lodge as you know I would." "I have already marked out a chamber," answered the dwarf, "and have curried favour with the major-domo, so that he will readily grant it to the new page at my request." "Where is it?" demanded the youth. "You know I am familiar with the house." "It is," replied the dwarf, "one of the small chambers, with a little ante-chamber, in the garden tower." "Quick, then! Haste and ask it for me," exclaimed Leonard de Monte. "The young lord bade me apply to you for what I needed; so you can plead his order to the master of the chambers. Then bring me the fraise speedily, ere I have time to think twice, and to waver in my resolutions." With almost supernatural speed the dwarf did his errand, and returned, bearing with him one of those stiff frills extended upon whalebone which are to be seen in all the portraits of those days. The youth instantly took it from his hand; and, concealing the falling collar of lace, which was for a short period the height of the fashion at the court of Henry III., and which certainly did not well accord with the simplicity of the rest of his apparel, he tied the fraise round his neck, and advanced to a small mirror in a silver frame that hung against the arras. "Yes, that does better," he exclaimed--"that does better. Now, what say you, Bartholo?" "That you are safe," answered the page--"that I should not know you myself, did I not hear your voice."