take me into your counsel and tell me about your learning to use the
sword," Aline said, later on, as they watched Edgar ride away through the
gateway of the castle. "I call it very unkind of you both."

"We had not thought of being unkind, Aline," Albert said, quietly. "When
we began I did not feel sure that either my strength or my resolution
would suffice to carry me through, and indeed it was at first very painful
work for me, having never before taken any strong exercise, and often I
would have given it up from the pain and fatigue that it caused me, had
not Edgar urged me to persevere, saying that in time I should feel neither
pain nor weariness. Therefore, at first I said nothing to you, knowing
that it would disappoint you did I give it up, and then when my arm gained
strength, and Edgar encouraged me by praising my progress, and I began to
hope that I might yet come to be strong and gain skill with the weapon, I
kept it back in order that I might, as I have done to-day, have the
pleasure of surprising you, as well as my father, by showing that I was
not so great a milksop as you had rightly deemed me."

"I never thought that you were a milksop, Albert," his sister said,
indignantly. "I knew that you were not strong, and was sorry for it, but
it was much nicer for me that you should be content to walk and ride with
me, and to take interest in things that I like, instead of being like
Henry Nevil or Richard Clairvaux, who are always talking and thinking of
nothing but how they would go to the wars, and what they would do there."

"There was no need that I should do that, Aline. Edgar is a much better
swordsman than either of them, and knows much more, and is much more
likely to be a famous knight some day than either Nevil or Clairvaux, but
I am certain that you do not hear him talk about it."