Patrician

Light, entering the vast room-a room so high that its carved ceiling refused itself to exact scrutiny-travelled, with the wistful, cold curiosity of the dawn, over a fantastic storehouse of Time. Light, unaccompanied by the prejudice of human eyes, made strange revelation of incongruities, as though illuminating the dispassionate march of history.
For in this dining hall-one of the finest in England-the Caradoc family had for centuries assembled the trophies and records of their existence....