Mondreer had been in the possession of the Forces from the year 1634, when Aaron Force came over with the flower of the British Catholic gentry who, with Leonard Calvert, founded the province of Maryland. They had prospered in every generation, and now owned more land and money than they had possessed when they first settled on the soil. Although there was no entail of the manor, yet the estate had, as a matter of custom, always come down through the eldest son of the family, though all the younger sons and daughters were almost equally well provided for. Usually the Forces had married among their own people, according to the time-honored custom of the country. Indeed, they had invariably done so up to the present generation, when young Abel Force was master of Mondreer. Great, therefore, was the consternation of the whole community when the heir of Mondreer, the handsomest, the wealthiest and the most accomplished among the young men of the county, if not of the whole State, instead of marrying some cousin or companion whom everybody knew all about, had, while on his travels abroad, forgotten all the venerable traditions of his native place, and "gone and wedded a stranger and foreigner" whom no one knew, or could find out anything about, except that she was as handsome as Juno, as haughty as Lucifer, and as poor as Lazarus. However, as soon as it was ascertained that the newly married couple were quite established at Mondreer, the county people began to call on them--some from curiosity, some from etiquette, some from neighborly kindness, others because Mondreer was one of the pleasantest houses in the world to visit, and many from a mixture of several or of all these motives. And every one who went to see the bride came back with such accounts of her grace, her beauty and her elegance that she became the standing theme of conversation at all the tea tables and bar rooms of the county. They were certainly a very handsome couple. He was a tall, finely formed, stately man, with a Roman profile, brown complexion, dark eyes and jet-black hair and beard. She was a tall, elegant and graceful blonde, with Grecian features, a blooming complexion, dark blue eyes, and rich, sunny, golden-brown hair. Theirs had evidently been a love match--a real, poetic, romantic, sentimental love match of the oldest-fashioned pattern. He thought that he had found in her the very pearl, or rose, or star of womanhood--and so even thought many other men, when basking in her smiles, to be sure. She thought that she had discovered in him the man of men. In a word, they really adored one another. Each lived only for the other. Each would have suffered or died to save the other a single pang. Even when, in time, children came to them, though they loved the little ones with more than usual parental affection, yet they loved them less than they loved each other.