“So it is to look at,” her father agreed, “and I must admit when I stayed there, which was only once, I was too impressed by the contents to worry if the roof leaked or the ceilings were likely to fall down.”
“You mean to say that the pictures and furniture are very valuable? Then why does the new Duke not sell them?”
“Because they are entailed,” her father replied. “In all great ancestral homes the contents, as well as the house and the estate itself are not the property of the current holder, but are all entailed from generation to generation from the past to the future and there are Trustees who see that the place is handed down without depletion from each Duke in turn to his son.”
Oletha did not speak. She was beginning to understand exactly what her father had in mind.
He glanced
