At the head of this avenue, perhaps half a mile from the roadway,
although it looked nearer because of the eminence upon which it was
placed, stood a mansion of the class that in auctioneers' advertisements
is usually described as "noble." Its general appearance was Elizabethan,
for in those days some forgotten Outram had practically rebuilt it; but
a large part of its fabric was far more ancient than the Tudors,
dating back, so said tradition, to the time of King John. As we are
not auctioneers, however, it will be unnecessary to specify its many
beauties; indeed, at this date, some of the tribe had recently employed
their gift of language on these attractions with copious fulness and
accuracy of detail, since Outram Hall, for the first time during six
centuries, was, or had been, for sale.

Suffice it to say that, like the oaks of its avenue, Outram was such
a house as can only be found in England; no mere mass of bricks
and mortar, but a thing that seemed to have acquired a life and
individuality of its own. Or, if this saying be too far-fetched and
poetical, at the least this venerable home bore some stamp and trace
of the lives and individualities of many generations of mankind, linked
together in thought and feeling by the common bond of blood.

The young man who stood in the roadway looked long and earnestly towards
the mass of buildings that frowned upon him from the crest of the hill,
and as he looked an expression came into his face which fell little, if
at all, short of that of agony, the agony which the young can feel at
the shock of an utter and irredeemable loss. The face that wore such
evidence of trouble was a handsome one enough, though just now all the
charm of youth seemed to have faded from it. It was dark and strong, nor
was it difficult to guess that in after-life it might become stern. The