E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illuminations. See 37973-h.htm or 37973-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/37973/pg37973-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37973/37973-h.zip) Project Gutenberg also has Volumes II and III of this work. See Volume II: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37974 Volume III: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37975 Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/dianatempest01chol DIANA TEMPEST. by MARY CHOLMONDELEY, Author of "The Danvers Jewels," "Sir Charles Danvers," etc. In Three Volumes. VOL. I. London: Richard Bentley & Son, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. 1893. (All rights reserved.) TO MY SISTER HESTER. "He put our lives so far apart We cannot hear each other speak." "The lawyer's deed Ran sure, In tail, To them, and to their heirs Who shall succeed, Without fail, For evermore. "Here is the land, Shaggy with wood, With its old valley, Mound and flood. But the heritors?" ... EMERSON, _Earth-song_. DIANA TEMPEST. CHAPTER I. "La pire des mésalliances est celle du coeur." Colonel Tempest and his miniature ten-year-old replica of himself had made themselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit in opposite corners of the smoking carriage. It was a chilly morning in April, and the boy had wrapped himself in his travelling rug, and turned up his little collar, and drawn his soft little travelling cap over his eyes in exact, though unconscious, imitation of his father. Colonel Tempest looked at him now and then with paternal complacency. It is certainly a satisfaction to see ourselves repeated in our children. We feel that the type will not be lost. Each new edition of ourselves lessens a natural fear lest a work of value and importance should lapse out of print. Colonel Tempest at forty was still very handsome; and must, as a young man, have possessed great beauty before the character had had time to assert itself in the face; before selfishness had learned to look out of the clear grey eyes, and a weak self-indulgence and irresolution had loosened the well-cut lips.