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.
There was one in Mr.Grey's family to whom he was so attached that he would, to oblige her, have thrown over the whole Carroll family; but of this that one person would not hear.

She hated the whole Carroll family with an almost unholy hatred, of which she herself was endeavoring to repent daily, but in vain.

She could not do other than hate them, but she could do other than allow her father to withdraw his fostering protection; for this one person was Mr.Grey's only daughter and his one close domestic associate.

Miss Dorothy Grey was known well to all the neighborhood, and was both feared and revered.

As we shall have much to do with her in the telling of our story, it may be well to make her stand plainly before the reader's eyes.
In the first place, it must be understood that she was motherless, brotherless and sisterless.