CHAPTER XXVIII
THE FACES UNMASKED
Eldon Hall is one of those fine old country mansions so much admired, and not infrequently coveted by, rich Americans who come over to “do England.”
It was the late Colonel North, of nitrate fame, who, upon visiting Killeen Castle, in County Meath, with a view to buying the place for his son, laconically observed: “Yes, it’s not a bad old pile, but much too ramshackle for my son. I could manage to live in it, I dare say, but if my son buys it he’ll pull it down and rebuild it,” a remark which tickled its owner a good deal.
Eldon Hall, in Northumberland, is fully as old and in some respects as venerable a “pile” as Killeen Castle, though its architecture is wholly different. Many attempts have been made to fix the date of Eldon—the property has been
