s came and passed, but Ridge, though escorting his sister and
cousin to all the festivities, took only a slight interest in them. He
was always slipping away to buy the latest papers or to read the
bulletins from Washington.

"Would you go as a private, son?" asked his father one evening when the
situation was being discussed in the family circle.

"No, no! If he goes at all--which Heaven forbid--it must be as an
officer," interposed Mrs. Norris, who had overheard the question.

"Of course a gentleman would not think of going as anything else,"
remarked Dulce, conclusively.

"I believe there were gentlemen privates on both sides during the Civil
War," said Spence Cuthbert, quietly.

"Of course," admitted Dulce, "but that was different. Then men fought
for principles, but now they are going to fight for--for--"

"The love of it, perhaps," suggested the girl from Kentucky.

"You know I don't mean that," cried Dulce. "They are going to fight
because--"

"Because their country calls them," interrupted Ridge, with energy,
"and because every true American endorses Decatur's immortal toast of
'Our Country. May she always be in the right; but, right or wrong, our
country.' Also because in the present instance we believe it is as
much our right to save Cuba from further oppression at the hands of
Spain as it always is for the strong to interpose in behalf of the weak
and helpless. For these reasons, and because I do not seem fit for
anything else, I am going into the city to-morrow to enlist in whatever
regiment I find forming."

"Oh, my boy! my boy!" cried Mrs. Norris, flinging her arms around her
son's neck, "do not go tomorrow. Wait a little longer, but one week,
until we can see what will happen. After that I will not seek further
to restrain you. It is your mother who prays."

"All right, mother dear, I will wait a few days to please you, though I
cannot see what difference it will make."

So the young man waited as patiently as might be a week longer, and
before it was ended the whole country was ringing with the wonderful
news of Admiral George Dewey's swift descent upon the Philippine
Islands with the American Asiatic squadron. With exulting heart every
American listened to the thrilling story of how this modern Farragut
stood on the bridge of the Olympia, and, with a fine contempt for the
Spanish mines known to be thickly planted in the channel, led his ships
into Manila Bay. Almost before the s