Hadn't he been a friend of one of her nephews at Oxford?
Hadn't he spent the Christmas holidays precisely three years before at her brother-in-law's in Yorkshire, taking that occasion to get himself refused with derision by wilful Betty, the second daughter of the house?
Her sister, who liked the floundering youth, had written to her to complain of Betty, and that the young man should now turn up as an appendage of Flora's was one of those oft-cited proofs that the world is small and that there are not enough people to go round.

His father had been something or other in the Treasury; his grandfather on the mother's side had been something or other in the Church.

He had come into the paternal estate, two or three thousand a year in Hampshire; but he had let the place advantageously and was generous to four plain sisters who lived at Bournemouth and adored him.

The family was hideous all round, but the very salt of the earth.

He was supposed to be unspeakably clever; he was fond of London, fond of books, of intellectual society and of the idea of a political career.