He had been a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, within a few years of taking his degree, wherein he had obtained high honours.

But he had married and had found himself obliged to accept the first living offered to him, to wit, the vicarage of Billingsfield, whereof his college held the rectory and received the great tithes.

The entire income he obtained from his cure never at any time exceeded three hundred and forty-seven pounds, and in the year when it reached that high figure there had been an unusually large number of marriages.

It was not surprising that the vicar should desire to improve his circumstances by receiving one or two pupils.

He had married young, as has been said, and there had been children born to him, a son and a daughter.