"But I must," said Dexter. "In the life I have lived, Miss Douglas, I have seen women of all classes, and several times have been with women in moments of peril--on the plains during an Indian attack, at the mines after an explosion, and once on a sinking steamer. Only one showed anything like your quick courage of yesterday, and she was a mother who showed it for her child. You did your brave deed for a stranger; and you seem, to my eyes at least, hardly more than a child yourself. It is but another proof of the innate nobility of our human nature, and I, an enthusiast in such matters, beg you to let me personally thank you for the privilege of seeing your noble act." He put out his hand, took hers, and pressed it cordially. It was a set speech, perhaps--Dexter made set speeches; but it was cordial and sincere. Anne, much comforted by this view of her impulsive action, looked at him with thankfulness. This was different from Miss Vanhorn's idea of it; different and better. "I once helped one of my little brothers, who had fallen over a cliff, in much the same way," she said, with a little sigh of relief. "I am glad you think it was excusable." "Excusable? It was superb," said Dexter. "And permit me to add, too, that I am a better judge of heroism than the people here, who belong, most of them, to a small, prejudiced, and I might say ignorant, class. They have no more idea of heroism, of anything broad and liberal, or of the country at large, than so many canary-birds born and bred in a cage. They ridicule the mere idea of being in earnest about anything in this ridiculous world. Yet the world is not so ridiculous as they think, and earnestness carries with it a tremendous weight sometimes. All the great deeds of which we have record have been done by earnest beliefs and earnest enthusiasms, even though mistaken ones. It is easy enough, by carefully abstaining from doing anything one's self, to maintain the position of ridiculing the attempts of others; but it is more than probable--in fact it is almost certain--that those very persons who ridicule and criticise could not themselves do the very least of those deeds, attain the very lowest of those successes, which afford them so much entertainment in others." So spoke Dexter; and not without a tinge of bitterness, which he disguised as scorn. A little of the indifference to outside opinion which characterized the very class of whom he spoke would have made him a contented, as he already was a successful, man. But there was a surface of personal vanity over his better qualities which led him to desire a tribute of universal liking; and this is the tribute the class referred to always refuses--to the person who appears to seek it.