said Anne, 'I cannot see why we should not consider him to have been really knighted.'
'Because,' said Elizabeth, 'I do not think that the old Saxon word, knight, meant the sworn champion, the devoted warrior of noble birth, which it now expresses.
You know Canute's old rhyme says, 'Row to the shore, knights,' as if they were boatmen, and not gentlemen.'
'I do not think it could have been beneath the dignity of a knight to row Canute,'
said Anne, 'considering that eight kings rowed Edgar the Peaceable.'
'Other things prove that Knight meant a servant, in Saxon,' said Elizabeth.
'I know it does sometimes, as in German now,' said Anne; 'but the question is, when it acquired a meaning equivalent in dignity to the French Chevalier.'
'Though it properly means anything but a horseman,' said Elizabeth; 'we ought to have a word answering to the German Ritter.'
'Yes, our language was spoilt by being mixed with French before it had come to its perfection,' said Anne; 'but still you have not proved that King Alfred was not a knight in the highest sense of the word, a preux chevalier.'
'I never heard of Alfred on horseback, nor did I ever know him called Sir Alfred of Wessex.'
'Sir is French, and short for seigneur or senior,' said Anne; 'besides, I suppose, you never heard Coeur-de-Lion called Sir Richard Plantagenet.'
'I will tell you how you may find out all about it,' interrupted Katherine; 'Mrs.
Turner's nephew, Mr. Augustus Mills, is going to give a lecture this evening, at seven o'clock, upon chivalry, and all that. Mrs. Turner has been telling us all day how much she wishes us to go.'
'Mr. Augustus Mills!' said Elizabeth; 'is he the little red-haired wretch who used to pester me about dancing all last year?'
'No, no,' said Katherine, 'that was Mr. Adolphus Mills, his brother, who is gone to be clerk to an attorney somewhere. This is Mr. Augustus, a very fine young man, and so clever, Willie says, and he has most beautiful curling black hair.'
'It wants a quarter to seven now,' said Elizabeth, 'and the sky is most beautifully clear, at last. Do you like the thoughts of this lecture, Anne?'
'I should like to go very much indeed,' said Anne; 'but first I must go and seal and send some letters for Mamma, so I must depart while you finish your tea.' So saying, she left the room.
'Pray, Kate,' said Helen, as Anne closed the door, 'where is this lecture to be given?'
'At the Mechanics' Institute, of course,' said Katherine.
'So we cannot go,' said Helen.
'And pray why not, my sapient sister?' said Elizabeth; 'what objection has your high mightiness?'
'My dear Lizzie,' said Helen, 'I wish you had heard all that I have heard, at Dykelands, about Mechanics' Institutes.'
'My dear Helen,' said Elizabeth, 'I wish you would learn that Dykelands is no Delphos to me.'
'Nay, but my dearest sister,' exclaimed Helen, clasping her hands, 'do but listen to me; I am sure that harm will come of your going.'
'Well, ope your lips, Sir Oracle,' said Elizabeth impatiently, 'no dog shall bark, only make haste about it, or we shall be too late.'
'Do you not know, Lizzie,' said Helen, 'that Socialists often hold forth in Mechanics' Institutes?'
'The abuse of a thing does not cancel its use,' said Elizabeth, 'and I do not suppose that Mr. Mills preaches Socialism.'
'Captain Atherley says,' persisted Helen, 'that all sorts of people ought not to mix themselves up together on equal terms.'
'Oh! then he never goes to church,' retorted Elizabeth.
'No, no, that was only my foolish way of expressing myself,' said Helen; 'I meant that he says that it is wrong for Church people to put themselves on a level with Dissenters, or Infidels, or Socialists, for aught they know to the contrary.'
'Since you have been in the north, Helen,' said Elizabeth, 'you have thought every third man you met a Chartist or a Socialist; but as I do not believe there are specimens of either kind in Abbeychurch, I see no harm in taking our chance of the very few Dissenters there are here, and sitting to hear a lecture in company with our own townspeople.'
'Really, I think we had better not go without asking leave first,' said Katherine.
'In the first place,' said Elizabeth, 'there is no one to ask; and next, I know that Mrs. Turner has offered hundreds of times to take us there, and I suppose Papa would have refused once for all, if he had been so very much afraid of our turning Chartists as Helen seems to be. I can see no reason why we should not go.'
'Then you consider my opinion as utterly worthless,' cried Helen, losing all command of temper, which indeed she had preserved longer than could have been expected. 'I might have known it; you never care for one word I say. You will repent it at last, I know you will.'
'It is not that I never care for what you say, Helen,' said Elizabeth, 'it is only when you give me Dykelands opinions instead of your own, and talk of what you do not understand. I suppose no one has any objection to a walk, at least. Shall we get ready?'
Everyone consented, and they went to prepare. It should be said, in excuse for Elizabeth, that both she and Helen had been absent from home at the time of the establishment of the Mechanics' Institute at Abbeychurch, so that they had not known of their father's opposition to it. Helen, who, when at Dykelands, had been nearer the manufacturing districts, had heard more of the follies and mischiefs committed by some of the favourers of these institutions. Unfortunately, however, her temper had prevented her from reasoning calmly, and Elizabeth had
