They hold on to the Hall, but little else.

Folk say that for four hundred years or more the De la Bornes have heard the sea thunder from within them walls.

'Tis, perhaps, as some writer has said in a book I've found lately, that the old families of the country, when once their menkind cease to be soldiers or fighters in the world, do decay and become rotten.

It is so with the De la Bornes, or rather with one of them." "Mr.Andrew," Jeanne remarked timidly.
"Mr.Andrew," the girl interrupted, "is a great gentleman, but he is never one of those who would stop the rot in a decaying race.

He is a great strong man is Mr.Andrew, and deceit and littleness are things he knows nothing of.