Mr. Grey at this time was living down at Fulham, in a small, old-fashioned house which over-looked the river, and was called the Manor-house.  He would have said that it was his custom to go home every day by an omnibus, but he did, in truth, almost always remain at his office so late as to make it necessary that he should return by a cab.  He was a man fairly well to do in the world, as he had no one depending on him but one daughter,—­no one, that is to say, whom he was obliged to support.  But he had a married sister with a scapegrace husband and six daughters whom, in fact, he did support.  Mrs. Carroll, with the kindest intentions in the world, had come and lived near him.  She had taken a genteel house in Bolsover Terrace,—­a genteel new house on the Fulham Road, about a quarter of a mile from her brother.  Mr. Grey lived in the old Manor-house, a small, uncomfortable place, which had a nook of its own, close upon the water, and with a lovely little lawn.  It was certainly most uncomfortable as a gentleman’s residence, but no consideration would induce Mr. Grey to sell it.  There were but two sitting-rooms in it, and one was for the most part uninhabited.  The up-stairs drawing-room was furnished, but any one with half an eye could see that it was never used.  A “stray” caller might be shown up there, but callers of that class were very uncommon in Mr. Grey’s establishment.

With his own domestic arrangements Mr. Grey would have been quite contented, had it not been for Mrs. Carroll.  It was now some years since he had declared that though Mr. Carroll,—­or Captain Carroll, as he had then been called,—­was an improvident, worthless, drunken Irishman, he would never see his sister want.  The consequence was that Carroll had come with his wife and six daughters and taken a house close to him.  There are such “whips and scorns” in the world to which a man shall be so subject as to have the whole tenor of his life changed by them.  The hero bears them heroically, making no complaints to those around him.  The common man shrinks, and squeals, and cringes, so that he is known to those around him as one especially persecuted.  In this respect Mr. Grey was a grand hero.  When he spoke to his friends of Mrs. Carroll his friends were taught to believe that his outside arrangements with his sister were perfectly comfortable.  No doubt there did creep out among those who were most intimate with him a knowledge that Mr. Carroll,—­for the captain had, in truth, never been more than a lieutenant, and had now long since sold out,—­was impecunious, and a trouble rather than otherwise.  But I doubt whether there was a single inhabitant of the neighborhood of Fulham who was aware that Mrs. Carroll and the Miss Carrolls cost Mr. Grey on an average above six hundred a year.