Donald, looking utterly mystified, shook his head.
“I do, then,” chimed in Harold, who had been listening to the latter part of the conversation; and over he came to the window, dragging his chair after him. “Those old Knights are great favorites of mine. Do you want me to tell you about them?”
“Yes,” said Donald very cordially; and Marie-Celeste said “yes” as cordially as was possible, considering it meant she should again relinquish her province of story-teller; but Harold, wholly unconscious, proceeded.
“You see,” he said, “you stumble across the Order of the Garter everywhere you turn here at Windsor, and so I've read up a good deal about them, and it's all just as interesting as any story you ever heard. The Order was founded—”
“What do you mean, 'The Order was founded?'” interrupted Donald, who was not going to have anything taken for granted.
“Oh, the Brotherhood of Knights! That is what an Order is, you know, and this one was founded way back in the fourteenth century, in the time of Edward the Third; and they say the way it came to be called the Order of the Garter was this: That King Edward was dancing with the Countess of Salisbury, when she had the misfortune to lose her garter; and then as he stooped to pick it up, and saw every one smiling, he gallantly announced, 'that they should shortly see that garter advanced to so high an honor and renown as to account themselves happy to wear it.'”
“Oh, that was elegant!” cried Marie-Celeste; “that is just my idea of a Knight.”
“Oh, they were truly elegant old fellows in ever so many ways, and they wore elegant clothes, I can tell you; and they do still, for that matter.”
“Why, are there any Knights nowadays?” questioned Donald, incredulously.
“Why, of course there are; and it's a very high honor, indeed, to be made a Knight of the Garter.”