A long French window that opens onto the lawn is thrown back, and the sound of laughing voices mingles with the birds’ songs. Looking into that room, you would hardly recognize the gentleman seated near the open window--Sir Ronald Alden has so greatly changed. No shadow now lingers on his face, his eyes are unclouded, nothing but laughter and love lingers in their depths; the weird, haggard expression that had distorted his handsome, patrician features has left no trace. He had been singing some childish trifle to the little ones at his knee--the music of children’s voices was no longer mute at Aldenmere--and he was enjoying the perplexed wonder and admiration in each little face. Sir Ronald was neither vain nor singular in believing that two more beautiful children had rarely been seen. The eldest--the son and heir--Harry, the future lord of Aldenmere, a princely boy, with the dark Alden face, was perhaps nearest to his father’s heart; then came the little girl, baby Clare, who had Lady Hermione’s bright, tender face and fair hair. “Little children all his own,” as Sir Ronald was never weary of thinking. He who had been so desolate and lonely, so loveless and joyless, was crowned now by this most precious gift. Little children who worshiped him, who hung on his least word, who thought him the cleverest and most mighty of men; little ones whom he could train to carry on the honors of his house, to uphold the glories of his race, those glories that in his hand had so nearly fallen away. As they laughed and sung around him, he was hardly less happy than they. Only the keenest observer could have told that every now and then there went from the depths of his heart a most bitter sigh, or that the words of a prayer were on his lips, words that will never die until the blue heavens shrivel up as grass. “Lord have mercy on me!” One thing Lady Hermione noticed; it was that there was nothing her husband seemed so solicitous over as curbing and correcting Harry’s temper. The little heir of Aldenmere was a princely boy, his only fault being what was commonly known in the house as the “Alden temper.” He showed signs of that before he could either walk or talk. “He must be corrected,” said Sir Ronald, when he saw how self-willed even such a baby could be; but Lady Alden had smiled and said: “It is only the Alden spirit, Ronald; surely you will not blame him for that?” Sir Ronald’s face had flushed darkly; for the first and only time in his life he spoke harshly to his worshiped wife. “He had better die,” he said, “than grow up with that temper unchecked.” Then, seeing his wife’s grieved, shocked look, he said: “Whether the annals of our race speak truthfully or not I cannot tell, but I know this, Hermione, there has never yet been an Alden to whom this temper or spirit has not brought unutterable woe. Let us shield our boy from this curse of his race.”