During my illness I had often thought of the gentleman who had been so kind to me that day. When I was at last out-of-doors and able to sit in the rose-garden near Aline, I asked Hugh, who was sitting by me mending his fishing-tackle: "Do you know, Hugh, what regiment is quartered in Annagassan Barracks just now?" "No. What do you want to know for?" looking up at me in amazement. "You don't know anyone there." "Well, I think the gentleman who was so kind the day I got hurt was probably an officer there." "Oh, is that it? Well, if he was, he's gone, for there is a new regiment just come in. The other's gone to India. Say, Hilda, weren't we duffers not to have asked him to call? I thought it was pretty queer of us, but it wasn't my place, you know." "We were rather duffers," said I. "I expect he'd have been glad. He looked a right good sort, and a gentleman. I could have put him up to a lot of things, and Donald and I want some male friends. Of course you girls are all right, but a man wants men," said Hugh, wisely. "Well," said I with a little sigh, "it's no use talking now. I don't suppose he'll ever come back again." "I should jolly well think not. I wish I had his chance. Why didn't old Desmond take a fancy to me instead of to Pierce?" "Maybe he will," said I consolingly. "Some day when he has established Pierce he will send for you." Somehow after that, when I began to write stories out of my head, the hero always was brown-faced and gray-eyed. He had always a ripple of close-cut brown hair, and a humorous mouth, and such a kind expression, when anyone was in trouble. He must have grown rather monotonous to Esther, my only audience, who will listen entranced for hours while I read my effusions. She is a most inspiriting audience. She reads her own romance into everything, and to see her flushed cheeks and wet, eager eyes she might be listening to Romeo and Juliet rather than to my poor little tales. It is the worst of Esther, that she has so little discrimination. Give her a love-story, and she doesn't mind whether the scene is Kerry or Mantua, the writer Hilda Brandon or William Shakespeare. "Oh, it is lovely!" she cries all the same, and thirsting for more. If Esther ever falls in love may I be there to see! Still she found out my hero. "Why, Hilda," she said one day, "Geoffrey Strafford is exactly like the young officer who helped you after Annagassan Races; and so was Hilton Beresford and Jack Vandaleur, and ever so many more." "You think so?"--with exaggerated surprise. "You must only fancy it, for if there is anything I pride myself on it is the originality of my characters; and I am sure those three you mention are not a bit alike." "Perhaps not," she said with a little puzzled line between her brows. "Yet I thought they all looked alike. He was quite nice enough for a hero anyway. You remember him, Hilda?"