He was a fine horseman and a hard rider; and men who had known him well said that he could fence and shoot with a pistol as few men care to do in these peaceable days.

Since volunteering had come up, he had become a captain of Volunteers, and had won prizes with his rifle at Wimbledon.
Such had been the life of George Vavasor, and such was his character, and such his appearance.

He had always lived alone in London, and did so at present; but just now his sister was much with him, as she was staying up in town with an aunt, another Vavasor by birth, with whom the reader will, if he persevere, become acquainted in course of time.

I hope he will persevere a little, for of all the Vavasors Mrs Greenow was perhaps the best worth knowing.

But Kate Vavasor's home was understood to be in her grandfather's house in Westmoreland.
On the evening before they started for Switzerland, George and Kate walked from Queen Anne Street, where they had been dining with Alice, to Mrs Greenow's house.