"Your father thought differently," she said; "he died from overwork."
"Ah! my dear father was a genius," said the young man, thoughtfully, and for some minutes there was silence between them.
"I can understand you," said Lady Hildegarde, with a smile; "you would like to have been a knight, always looking out for some romantic adventure; you would have fought giants, released distressed princesses."
"Overthrown all wrong and upheld all right," he said; "that would have been my vocation."
Lady Hildegarde went over to him and laid her hand on his head. "My dearest boy, you are young yet, but will live to see that there is as much to be done in the way of redressing wrong now as there was in the days when knights rode forth to do battle for lady fair."
"I want some romantic adventure," he said; "I cannot see much in the plain, common ways of man. I should like to do something that would make me a hero at once, something brave and glorious."
"My dear boy," she said; "God grant you may learn to distinguish true from false, true romance from mere sentiment, true gold from mere glitter."
He looked so eager, so handsome, she kissed him with passionate love.
"I should like to have been one of King Arthur's knights," he said, musingly.
"My dear Basil," said his mother; "your mind is chaos. I tell you there are giants to be fought, hydra-headed ones—the giants of ignorance, of wickedness, of injustice, and they call for a sharper, keener sword than that wielded by the knights of old."