rejoicing. Once more all the country round about was assembled there;
again the artists and reporters of the London press were among the crowd;
and again full-page pictures of the ceremonies attending the queen's
reception and entertainment were published in the illustrated papers, and
the fame of that royal visit went out to the uttermost parts of the
earth.

But mark this: Every footman that waited at the grand state-dinner table
was a bailiff in disguise, in charge of the plate and china, which,
together with all the fabulous riches of art, literature, science and
_virtu_ collected at Lone had been taken in execution, by the
officers secretly in possession.

The royal party, with their retinue, left Lone on the afternoon of the
third day.

And then the crash came? The blow was sudden, overwhelming and utterly
destructive.

The shock of the fall of Lone was felt from one end of the kingdom to the
other.

For the last time a crowd gathered around Castle Lone. But they came not
as festive guests but as a flock of vultures around a carcass, bent on
prey. For the last time artists and reporters came not to illustrate the
triumphs, but to record the downfall of the great ducal house of
Scott-Hereward; to make sketches, take photographs and write descriptions
of the magnificent and splendid halls and chambers, picture-galleries and
museums, before they should be dismantled by the rapacious purchasers who
flocked to the vendue of Lone, to profit by the ruin of the proprietor.