arents could hardly tell the difference
between them. Indeed, the likeness between them is supposed to have
given rise to the proverb, 'A miss is as good as a mile.'

It was in that year that the duke, their liege lord, bade all his
vassals to a great festival to be held in his castle, and many of them
took their sons with them, to show them some of the customs of chivalry.
Amys and Amyle went with the rest, and endless were the mistakes made
about them. The boys themselves, who were merry little fellows,
delighted in increasing the confusion, and played so many pranks that
the duke declared that they must remain at the court with him, as his
life would be too dull without them.

Perhaps the knights thought that their homes would be dull too, but, if
so, they did not dare say so; only their wives noticed, as they entered
the castle gates, that their heads were bowed, as if some ill had
befallen them.

At first the boys felt unhappy and lonely in this strange new world, and
clung to each other more closely than ever, but, after a little, they
got used to the change, and learned eagerly how to shoot at a mark and
tilt at a ring, or to sing sweet love-songs to the sound of a lute.

So the years passed away till Amys and Amyle were eighteen years old,
and thought themselves men, and were ready to cross lances with the
bravest. The first step they took towards proving to the world that no
tie of blood could bind them closer than the love they bore one to
another, was to swear the oaths which made them brothers in arms, and
obliged them to fight in each other's quarrels, avenge each other's
wrongs--even to sacrifice what the other held most dear in the service
of his friend. Marriage itself was not more sacred.

All this time the duke had been too busy with his own affairs to have
the youths much in his company, though he took care that they had the
best chances of learning everything that they ought to know. When,
however, he heard that Amys and Amyle had sworn the solemn oaths that
made them brothers in arms, he ordered a tournament to be held in their
honour, and, when it was over, knighted them on the field. He further
declared that henceforth Sir Amys should be his chief butler and Sir
Amyle his head steward over his household, thus the steward whom Amyle
displaced became their deadly enemy.

Although the young men knew a great deal about hunting, and wrestling,
and other such sports, they had no idea what the duti