questions.

Still, it was not disagreeable to know that if he could only make up
his mind to something very definite and irretrievable indeed, Court
House would one day be his. It was the only house in England that came
up to his idea of what a country house should be. A square Tudor
building with two short, gable-ended wings, thrown out at right angles
to its front; three friendly grey walls enclosing a little courtyard
made golden all day long with sunshine from the south. Court House was
older than anything near it except Harmouth Bridge and the Parish
Church. Standing apart in its own green lands, it looked older than
the young red earth beneath it, a mass upheaved from the grey
foundations of the hills. Its face, turned seawards, was rough and
pitted with the salt air; thousands upon thousands of lichens gave it
a greenish bloom, with here and there a rusty patch on groin and
gable. It contained the Harden Library, _the_ Harden Library, one of
the finest private collections in the country. It contained also his
cousin Lucia.

He had always loved Court House, but not always his cousin Lucia. The
scholarly descendant of a long line of scholars, Jewdwine knew that he
had been a favourite with his grandfather, Sir Joseph Harden, the
Master of Lazarus, he was convinced (erroneously) that he was a Harden
by blood and by temperament, and of course if he had only been a
Harden by name, and not a Jewdwine, Court House and the great Harden
Library would have been his instead of his cousin Lucia's. He knew
that his grandfather had wished them to be his. Lucia's mother was
dead long ago; and when his uncle Sir Frederick definitely renounced
the domestic life, Lucia and Lucia alone stood between him and the
inheritance that should have been his. This hardly constituted a