One portion of the gallery was set aside for the portraits of the
family. Grim old warriors and fair ladies hung side by side;
faces of marvelous beauty, bearing the signs of noble descent,
shone out clearly from their gilded frames.

"Look, Ronald," Lord Earle said, laying one hand upon his
shoulder, "you stand before your ancestors now. Yours is a grand
old race. England knows and honors it. Look at these pictured
faces of the wives our fathers chose. There is Lady Sybella
Earle; when one of Cromwell's soldiers drew his dagger to slay
her husband, the truest friend King Charles ever had, she flung
herself before him, and received the blow in his stead. She
died, and he lived--noble and beautiful, is she not? Now look
at the Lacy Alicia--this fair patrician lady smiling by the side
of her grim lord; she, at the risk of her life, helped him to fly
from prison, where he lay condemned to death for some great
political wrong. She saved him, and for her sake he received
pardon. Here is the Lady Helena--she is not beautiful, but look
at the intellect, the queenly brow, the soul-lit eyes! She, I
need not tell you, was a poetess. Wherever the English language
was spoken, her verses were read--men were nobler and better for
reading them. The ladies of our race were such that brave men
may be proud of them. Is it not so, Ronald?"

"Yes," he replied, calmly; "they were noble women."

Lord Earle then led his son to a large painting, upon which the
western sunbeams lingered, brightening the fair face they shone
upon, until it seemed living and smiling. A deep and tender