The great estate had passed into the hands of strangers.

Only to Billy and Susan and Sheba, faithful even unto death, was it still surrounded by the halo of its old-time grandeur.
Naturally, young Nat Chadwick, the last of the line, had fallen heir to all the love and respect with which they cherished any who bore the family name.

To other people he was a luckless sort of fellow, who had sown his wild oats early, and met disappointment at every turn.

It was passed about, too, that there was a romance in his life which had changed and embittered it.

Certain it is, he suddenly seemed to lose all ambition and energy.