"The poor knight, how could he help himself?
Why, as for mine, though I find him not all I could wish, I'll e'en be patient as I may, and seek if I may not mend him.

These knights, you know, are most difficult.

'Tis hard to make them perfect." Mary Connynge sat with her hands in her lap, looking idly out of the window and scarce heeding the despoiled fabric which lay on her lap.
"Come, confess, Lady Kitty," said she at length, turning toward her friend.

"Wert not trying to copy a knight of a hedge-row after all?
Did not a certain tall young knight, with eyes of blue, or gray, or the like, give pattern for your sampler while you were broidering to-day ?" "Fie! For shame!" again replied Lady Catharine, flushing none the less.
"Rather ask, does not such a thought come over thine own broidering?
But as to the hedge-row, surely the gentleman explained it all proper enough; and I am sure--yes, I am very sure--that my brother Charles had quite approved of my giving the injured young man the lift in the coach--" "Provided that your Brother Charles had ever heard of such a thing!" "Well, of that, to be sure, why trouble my brother over such a trifle, when 'twas so obviously proper ?" argued Lady Catharine, bravely.

"And certainly, if we come to knights and the like, good chivalry has ever demanded succor for those in distress; and if, forsooth, it was two damsels in a comfortable coach, who rescued two knights from underneath a hedge-row, why, such is but the way of these modern days, when knights go seeking no more for adventures and ladies fair; as you very well know." "As I do not know, Lady Catharine," replied Mary Connynge.