"Heather, you must not mind Vernon, he always talks nonsense," said Lady Carrington. "Will you have clear or thick soup, dear? We always help ourselves at lunch, it makes the meal so much less formal." I said I would have thick soup, and Captain Carbury took clear. He looked at me again once or twice, and I thought that his expression was somewhat quizzical, but, all the same, I liked him. I had made in the course of my life a little gallery of heroes; they were of all sorts and descriptions. In that gallery my father held the foremost place, he was the soldier _par excellence_, the hero above all other heroes. Then there were splendid persons whose names were mentioned in history. The great Duke of Marlborough was one, and Sir Walter Raleigh, and King Edward the First, and King Henry the Fourth. And there were minor lights, great men, too, in their way, statesmen and ambassadors and discoverers of new worlds. But besides the historical personages, there were those few whom I knew personally. Amongst these was one of the many "Jonases" who had lived with Aunt Penelope, and who was admitted into a somewhat dark and shadowy part of my gallery. He was a very ugly Jonas, and slightly--quite slightly--deformed; that is, one shoulder was hitched up a good bit higher than the other. In consequence, he never felt happy or comfortable in buttons, and used to coax me to let him play with me in the garden in the dress he wore at home, which was loose and unwieldy, but, nevertheless, fitted that misshapen, poor shoulder. Aunt Penelope had been very angry with him for not appearing in his buttons costume, and she was not the least concerned when he told her that it made his shoulder ache; she was more determined than ever that he should wear his livery, and never be seen out of it while in her employ. He told me, that poor Buttons, that he would have to wear it, notwithstanding the pain, for the very little money he earned helped his mother at home. It was after he said this, and after I found out that what he said was true, that I put him into my gallery of heroes. He never knew that he was there. He became ill quite suddenly of some sort of inflammation of the spine, and was taken away to the hospital to die. I wanted very badly to see him when I heard he was so ill, but Aunt Penelope would not hear of it. Then I gave her a message for him. "Tell him, if you are going yourself," I said, "that he is in my gallery of heroes. He will know what it means." But Aunt Penelope forgot to give the message, so that poor Jonas never knew. But I had other heroes also. There was a pale young curate, like the celebrated curate in the song, and my heart went out to him--my girlish heart--in full measure, and I put him into my gallery right away; there I gave him a foremost place, although I never spoke to him in my young life, and I don't think, as far as I remember, that his eyes ever met mine.