e
missed him even more than her cousin, whose warm and generous nature had
endeared him to all his new friends.

In the meantime Lieut. Allen called to say farewell to his former
playmate, and the friend of his later years. What if Dame Rumor said he
cherished a latent desire for a nearer title than either of these.
Dorris said they were only firm and true friends; and the tenor of their
talk seemed to prove that she was right, for as she turned from the
old-time spinnet, where she had been singing the lovely little serenade
of Thomas Heywood:--

"Pack clouds away, and welcome day;
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet airs, blow soft; mount, larks, aloft,
To give my love good-morrow.
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I'll borrow;
Bird, plume thy wing, nightingale, sing,
To give my love good-morrow!"

Allen said abruptly, "Dorris, for what are you waiting?"

"Waiting?" repeated Dorris, wonderingly.

"Yes; don't you remember

"While year by year the suitors come
To find her locked in silence dumb?"

"If it was any one but my old friend Max I should make you a very low
courtesy, and say, 'By your leave, fair sir, it is a matter of not the
slightest consequence to _you_;' but I'll tell you the truth and nothing
but the truth: I'm waiting for my hero, Max."

"For your hero? Yes; I thought you were. And what is he like? A fairy
prince like the Sleeping Beauty's?"

"Don't be satirical: it doesn't suit you, Max," retorts Dorris.

"Satirical? I'm in the deepest earnest. Won't you describe him? I really
wish to know."

"Well," began Dorris, "it is not exactly an easy thing to describe an
imaginary person. He is no fairy prince, Max, but a strong and earnest
man, a true and noble soul; a man who, for a good cause, would peril
anything, a knight like Bayard of old: _sans peur et sans reproche_."

"Do you think you will ever find this ideal?" questions Max.

"No," is the prompt reply. "If there are such men, I have never met
them. But I would far rather wait for the dim ideal than try the
commonplace reality."

"But is all the reality commonplace? Let me tell you a story, Dorris; I
shall not bore you, for it is not long: When I joined the army, in the
first of the war, I went to tell an old friend, and to take leave of
him. He was a peculiar fellow, seemingly cold, light and satirical,
half-sneering at the ardent blaze of patriotism that was burning all
around