"And then such an opening as he might have at his sister's house." Major Grantly had been a successful man in life,--with the one exception of having lost the mother of his child within a twelvemonth of his marriage and within a few hours of that child's birth.

He had served in India as a very young man, and had been decorated with the Victoria Cross.

Then he had married a lady with some money, and had left the active service of the army, with the concurring advice of his own family and that of his wife.

He had taken a small place in his father's county, but the wife for whose comfort he had taken it had died before she was permitted to see it.

Nevertheless he had gone to reside there, hunting a good deal and farming a little, making himself popular in the district, and keeping up the good name of Grantly in a successful way, till--alas,--it had seemed good to him to throw those favouring eyes on poor Grace Crawley.