is your
privilege to rise above the petty social hollows of life. Learn to
take an eagle view, my dear. What does the eagle care for the
happenings down in the hollows?

"'With wing on the wind, and eye on the sun,
He swerves not a line, but bears onward--right on!'

That is a true American motto, learned from our national emblem.

"It is absolute foolishness for us to prate of old-world castes when
it is a part of our national creed that any one among us may rise as
high as the best of us, provided he can grow the wings wherewith to
soar. That little speech which almost broke your heart is a part of
our creed, too. 'The hand of Douglas _is_ his own.' The American
Douglas reserves the right to extend it, regardless of all arbitrary
social lines, to any palm that has proved itself worthy, no matter
how hard and toil-stained it may be. Only snobbishness refuses."

There was a long pause, while Mary Lee considered the old general's
little sermon, and he watched her, with a kindly twinkle in his eyes.

"Are you strong enough to do that, child?" he asked, presently; "to
rise to the eagle view of the situation, and stay on here regardless
of the slights that have stung you, for your friend's sake? And your
father's sake, too," he added. "It would grieve him sorely to know of
your disappointment, as he would have to know it, if you went back
before the appointed time."

Mary Lee looked up quickly. "I don't believe that you understand,
after all," she cried. "I could rise above the snubbings. It is not
that that hurts, but it is the disappointment. Oh, you don't know how
I longed to be friends with those girls! They are so bright and
attractive, and seem to have such good times together. It is the
missing of all that I had hoped to find that hurts."

The wistfulness of the fair little face touched the general's gallant
soul to the quick. "'Pon my word," he declared. "If you care as
much as that for their friendship, you shall have it. I'll conduct
a campaign into the enemy's quarters, and capture it for you, myself!"

[Illustration: "IT WAS NOT HER VOICE ALONE WHICH DREW SO MANY
ADMIRERS."]

And nobly the old general kept his promise. The night of the musicale
Travis Dent was not on the programme, but she sang more than once, and
each time, except the first, at the request of the most noted musical
people among the guests. It was the general who led her to the piano,
first saying that no programme was c