“Well, and what is your definition of a hero, I wonder; what are the qualities you think absolutely necessary to make one?”
“I think I have only two absolutely necessary ones,” said Erica; “but my heroes must have these two, they must have brains and goodness.”
“A tolerably sweeping definition,” said Charles Osmond, laughing, “almost equal to a friend of mine who wanted a wife, and said there were only two things he would stipulate for—1,500 a year, and an angel. But it brings us to another definition, you see. We shall agree as to the brains, but how about goodness! What is your definition of that very wide, not to say vague, term?”
“I don't think I can define it,” she said; “but one knows it when one sees it.”
“Do you mean by it unselfishness, courage, truthfulness, or any other virtue?”
“Oh, it isn't any one virtue, or even a parcel of virtues, it will not go into words.”
“It is then the nearest approach to some perfect ideal which is in your mind?”
“I suppose it is,” she said, slowly.
“How did that ideal come into your mind?”
“I don't know; I suppose I got it by inheritance.”