_Anthelia._ A great deal more. I would require him to be free in all his thoughts, true in all his words, generous in all his actions—ardent in friendship, enthusiastic in love, disinterested in both—prompt in the conception, and constant in the execution, of benevolent enterprise—the friend of the friendless, the champion of the feeble, the firm opponent of the powerful oppressor—not to be enervated by luxury, nor corrupted by avarice, nor intimidated by tyranny, nor enthralled by superstition—more desirous to distribute wealth than to possess it, to disseminate liberty than to appropriate power, to cheer the heart of sorrow than to dazzle the eyes of folly. _The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ And do you really expect to find such a knight-errant? The age of chivalry is gone. _Anthelia._ It is, but its spirit survives. Disinterested benevolence, the mainspring of all that is really admirable in the days of chivalry, will never perish for want of some minds calculated to feel its influence, still less for want of a proper field of exertion. To protect the feeble, to raise the fallen—to liberate the captive—to be the persevering foe of tyrants (whether the great tyrant of an overwhelming empire, the petty tyrant of the fields, or the ‘little tyrant of a little corporation,’)[4] it is not necessary to wind the bugle before enchanted castles, or to seek adventures in the depths of mountain caverns and forests of pine; there is no scene of human life but presents sufficient scope to energetic generosity; the field of action, though less splendid in its accompaniments, is not less useful in its results, nor less attractive to a liberal spirit: and I believe it is possible to find as true a knight-errant in a brown coat in the nineteenth century, as in a suit of golden armour in the days of Charlemagne. _The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ Well! well! my dear, when you have seen a little more of the world, you will get rid of some of your chivalrous whimsies; and I think you will then agree with me that there is not, in the whole sphere of fashion, a more elegant, fine-spirited, dashing, generous fellow than my nephew Sir Telegraph Paxarett, who, by the bye, will be driving his barouche this way shortly, and if you do not absolutely forbid it, will call on me in his route. These words seemed to portend that the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney’s visit would be a visitation, and at the same time threw a clear light on its motive; but they gave birth in the mind of Anthelia to a train of ideas which concluded in a somewhat singular determination. CHAPTER III HYPOCON HOUSE