One and all they had been zealous cultivators of the fine arts.

Earlescourt was almost overcrowded with pictures, statues, and works of art.
Son succeeded father, inheriting with title and estate the same kindly, simple dispositions and the same tastes, until Rupert Earle, nineteenth baron, with whom our story opens, became Lord Earle.

Simplicity and kindness were not his characteristics.

He was proud, ambitious, and inflexible; he longed for the time when the Earles should become famous, when their name should be one of weight in council.

In early life his ambitious desires seemed about to be realized.