They were of the high-bred, patrician type--the style of face that has come down to us from the cavaliers and crusaders of old. The only way in which Sir Ronald differed from his ancestors was that he had a mouth like one of the old Greek gods--it would of itself have made a woman almost divinely lovely--it made him irresistible. Very seldom does one see anything like it in real life. A smile from it would have melted the coldest heart--a harsh word have pierced the heart of one who loved him. He had something of the spirit that distinguished the crusaders; he was brave even to recklessness--he never studied danger; he was proud, stubborn, passionate. A family failing of the Aldens was a sudden impulse of anger that often led them to words they repented of. So that he was by no means perfect, this young lord of Alden; but it is to be imagined that many people liked him all the better for that. CHAPTER VIII. HOW THE TRAGEDY BEGAN. Most of the young people in this pretty and aristocratic neighborhood of Leeholme were children together. Sir Ronald Alden could not have remembered when he first saw Clarice Severn or Lady Hermione, the two beautiful women with whom his life was to be so strangely interwoven. He had dim recollections of children’s balls and parties, of picnics in the woods and rows on the river. At that time he loved Lady Hermione best. Clarice was, perhaps, more beautiful, a little prouder, and certainly wore the prettiest dresses. Clarice, too, had a fashion of extorting homage; Hermione laughed at it. There was perfect freedom in their intercourse in those days. “I shall not call you Lady Hermione,” Ronald would say; “that would be nonsense, you know, because you are going to be my wife.” And the childish face raised to his would brighten with smiles and dimples. “You will have to go on your knees to ask me; I shall not marry the first boy who chooses to say I am to be his wife.” “But you have said you love me, Hermione, and I shall make you remember those words when you have grown up. I shall be a big man then, and I shall try and be so clever that you will be proud to know me.” “We shall see when the time comes,” replied Lady Hermione. “Papa says boys are fond of boasting.” “The Aldens have no need to boast,” said the boy, proudly; “history boasts for them.” She gave a little mocking smile and tripped away. He loved her all the better for her pretty, piquant, teasing ways. When driven to desperation by her coquetry, he sought refuge with Clarice, who never, even then, child as she was, turned a deaf ear to him. But no matter how assiduous were his attentions he could never succeed in making his young ladylove jealous; in the course of half an hour he usually repented of his infidelity and returned to Lady Hermione. The time came when the childish warfare was ended; the young ladies went to school, Ronald to college, and when he left Oxford his uncle took him abroad.