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.”