It might also be polite to inquire
how many maidens in distress the knight had rescued recently. Would he
carry his lance upstairs and leave it outside my father's door? If so,
I could play with it, and perhaps tilt at the footman with it. Would he
leave his prancing charger in the courtyard in the care of his esquire?
The possibilities were really endless. Presently our family doctor came
upstairs with another gentleman, and they went into my father's room. I
said "Good-morning" to our own doctor, but scarcely noticed the
stranger, for I was straining my ears to catch the first clank of the
knight's armour on the marble pavement of the hall below. Time went on;
our doctor and the stranger reappeared and went downstairs, and still
no knight arrived. At last I went back to my governess and told her
that the knight must have forgotten, for he had never come. I could
have cried with disappointment when told that the frock-coated stranger
was the knight. That a knight! Without armour, or plumes, or lance, or
charger! To console me for my disappointment I was allowed to see my
father in his full robes as a Knight of the Garter before he left for
some ceremony of the Order. This was the first intimation I had
received that we could include a knight in our own family circle.
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