She was also the belle and beauty par excellence of the country. At all balls and fêtes she was queen. Her brilliant face, lighted by smiles, her winning, haughty grace drawing all eyes, attracting all attention. Wherever she was she reigned paramount. Other women, even if more beautiful, paled into insignificance by her side.
She was very generous, giving with open, lavish hands. Proud in so far as she had a very just appreciation of her own beauty, wealth and importance. She was at times haughty to her equals, but to her inferiors she was ever gentle and considerate, a quality which afterward, when she came to reign at Aldenmere, made her beloved and worshiped by all her servants.
She had faults, but the nature of the woman was essentially noble. What those faults were and what they did for her will be seen during the course of our story.
Mount Severn, even after the death of its accomplished master, was a favorite place of resort. Mrs. Severn did not enjoy much of the quiet she longed for. She would look at her daughter sometimes with a smile, and say:
“It will always be the same until you are married, Clarice; then people will visit you instead of me.”
So, little when she dreamed of the brilliant future awaiting that beautiful and beloved child, did she dream of the tragedy that was to cut that young life so terribly short.
Leeholme Park was the family seat of the Earl of Lorriston, a quiet, easy, happy, prosperous gentleman, who had never known a trouble or shadow of care in his whole life.
“People talk of trouble,” he was accustomed to say; “but I really think half of it is their own making; of course there must be sickness and death, but the world is a bright place in spite of that.”
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.