"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."

And there came into her heart a great fear lest her boy, who had too
much imagination, too much ideality, would waste his life in dreams.

"I will tell you, Basil," said Marion Hautville; "what I call a great
hero. The man who does his duty perfectly in the state of life in which
God has placed him."

"We all do that," replied Basil.

"Indeed we do not--you do not, to begin with. You ought now, instead of
dreaming about Froissart and his barbaric times, you ought to be
studying hard how to make a good master of this large estate--how to
employ the vast wealth given to you--how best to serve your God, your
country and those who will depend upon you."

"Solomon in petticoats!" cried Basil, gaily, and Marion joined in his
laugh.

That conversation gave Lady Carruthers many uneasy moments. She
understood so well the dreamy, yet ardent, romantic temperament of the
boy.

"What shall I make of him?" she said. "Will he ever learn to live
contentedly here at Ulverston, doing his duty, as Marion says, to God
and man? My poor Basil, he lives too late!"

She asked advice from those best fitted to give it. One and all sa