And what of the man, how shall we know him? GUIDO [_reading still_] ‘I will wear a violet cloak with a silver falcon broidered on the shoulder.’ A brave attire, Ascanio. ASCANIO I’d sooner have my leathern jerkin. And you think he will tell you of your father? GUIDO Why, yes! It is a month ago now, you remember; I was in the vineyard, just at the corner nearest the road, where the goats used to get in, a man rode up and asked me was my name Guido, and gave me this letter, signed ‘Your Father’s Friend,’ bidding me be here to-day if I would know the secret of my birth, and telling me how to recognise the writer! I had always thought old Pedro was my uncle, but he told me that he was not, but that I had been left a child in his charge by some one he had never since seen. ASCANIO And you don’t know who your father is? GUIDO No. ASCANIO No recollection of him even? GUIDO None, Ascanio, none. ASCANIO [_laughing_] Then he could never have boxed your ears so often as my father did mine. GUIDO [_smiling_] I am sure you never deserved it. ASCANIO Never; and that made it worse. I hadn’t the consciousness of guilt to buoy me up. What hour did you say he fixed? GUIDO Noon. [_Clock in the Cathedral strikes_.] ASCANIO It is that now, and your man has not come. I don’t believe in him, Guido. I think it is some wench who has set her eye at you; and, as I have followed you from Perugia to Padua, I swear you shall follow me to the nearest tavern. [_Rises_.] By the great gods of eating, Guido, I am as hungry as a widow is for a husband, as tired as a young maid is of good advice, and as dry as a monk’s sermon. Come, Guido, you stand there looking at nothing, like the fool who tried to look into his own mind; your man will not come. GUIDO Well, I suppose you are right. Ah! [_Just as he is leaving the stage with_ ASCANIO, _enter_ LORD MORANZONE _in a violet cloak_, _with a silver falcon broidered on the shoulder_; _he passes across to the Cathedral_, _and just as he is going in_ GUIDO _runs up and touches him_.] MORANZONE Guido Ferranti, thou hast come in time. GUIDO What! Does my father live? MORANZONE Ay! lives in thee. Thou art the same in mould and lineament, Carriage and form, and outward semblances; I trust thou art in noble mind the same. GUIDO Oh, tell me of my father; I have lived But for this moment. MORANZONE We must be alone. GUIDO This is my dearest friend, who out of love Has followed me to Padua; as two brothers, There is no secret which we do not share. MORANZONE There is one secret which ye shall not share; Bid him go hence. GUIDO [_to_ ASCANIO] Come back within the hour. He does not know that nothing in this world Can dim the perfect mirror of our love. Within the hour come. ASCANIO