Page:The Monk, A Romance - Lewis (1796, 1st ed., Volume 3).djvu/7

 himself to realize his master's chimeras. He was eternally busied in planning schemes for entering the convent, or at least of obtaining from the nuns some intelligence of Agnes. To execute these schemes was the only inducement which could prevail on him to quit Don Raymond. He became a very Proteus, changing his shape every day; but all his metamorphoses were to very little purpose. He regularly returned to the palace de las Cisternas without any intelligence to confirm his master's hopes. One day he took it into his head to disguise himself as a beggar; he put a patch over his left eye, took his guitar in hand, and posted himself at the gate of the convent.

"If Agnes is really confined in the convent," thought he, "and hears my voice, she will recollect it, and possibly may find means to let me know that she is here."

With this idea he mingled with a crowd of beggars who assembled daily at the gate of St. Clare to receive soup, which the nuns