He was married to the woman he loved; he had a son to succeed him; his estates were large; his fortune vast; he had a young daughter, who made the sunshine and light of his home. What had he to trouble him? He had never known any kind of want, privation, care or trouble; he had never suffered pain or heartache. No wonder he looked around on those nearest and dearest, on his elegant home, his attached friends, and wondered with a smile how people could think the world dull or life dreary. Yet on this kindly, simple, happy man a terrible blow was to fall. I do not know who could properly describe Lady Hermione Lorriston, the real heroine of our story. It seems to me easier to paint the golden dawn of a summer morning, the transparent beauty of a dewdrop, to put to music the song of the wind or the carol of a bird, or the deep, solemn anthem of the waves, as to describe a character that was full of light and shade, tender as a loving woman, playful as a child, spiritual, poetical, romantic, a perfect queen of the fairies, whose soul was steeped in poetry as flowers are in dew. By no means a perfect woman, though endowed with woman’s sweetest virtues; she was inclined to be willful, with a delicious grace that no one could resist. She liked to have her own way, and generally managed it in the end. She delighted rather too much in this will of her own. She owned to herself, with meek, pretty contrition, that she was often inclined to be passionate, that she was impatient of control, too much inclined to speak her mind with a certain freedom that was not always prudent. Yet the worst of Lady Hermione’s faults was that they compelled you to love her, and even to love them, they were so full of charms. When she was quite a little child Lord Lorriston was accustomed to say that the prettiest sight in all the world was Hermione in a passion. She was completely spoiled by her father, but, fortunately, Lady Lorriston was gifted with some degree of common sense, and exerted a wholesome control over the pet of the household. The earl’s son and heir, Clement Dane Lorriston, was at college, and Lady Hermione, having no sister of her own, was warmly attached to Clarice Severn. There were several other families--the Thrings of Thurston, the Gordons of Leyton, and, as may be imagined, with so many young people, there was no inconsiderable amount of love-making and marriage. Sir Ronald Alden was, without exception, the most popular man in the neighborhood. The late Lord of Aldenmere had never married; to save himself all trouble he adopted his nephew, Ronald, and brought him up as his heir; so that when his time came to reign he was among those with whom he had lived all his life. He was very handsome, this young lord of Alden. The Alden faces were all very much the same; they had a certain weary, half-contemptuous look; but when they softened with tenderness or brightened with smiles, they were simply beautiful and irresistible.