"Confess now, do you not like and admire the olden times better than these ?" "Yes," he replied; "I always did." "I knew it," said Lady Hildegarde; "I understand now what has always puzzled everyone who has had the care of you.

You were born two hundred years too late; the ancient days of knight errantry and chivalry would have suited you better than these." "It is your fault, mother," he replied.

"When I was only twelve years old, you gave me a beautiful edition of Froissart's Chronicles, and everything else has seemed dull and tame to me since." "I thought as much," she said, quietly; "you make the same mistake others have made before you; you live in the past, not in the present." "You are right, mother; in these days, there seems to me nothing to do." "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.