There was another field of some six or seven acres, to which there was a gate from the corner of the front paddock, and which went round two sides of the garden.

This was Nethercoats, and the whole estate covered about twelve acres.
It was not a place for much bachelor enjoyment of that sort generally popular with bachelors; nevertheless Mr Grey had been constant in his residence there for the seven years which had now elapsed since he had left his college.

His easy access to Cambridge had probably done much to mitigate what might otherwise have been the too great tedium of his life; and he had, prompted thereto by early associations, found most of his society in the Close of Ely Cathedral.

But, with all the delight he could derive from these two sources, there had still been many solitary hours in his life, and he had gradually learned to feel that he of all men wanted a companion in his home.
His visits to London had generally been short and far between, occasioned probably by some need in the library, or by the necessity of some slight literary transaction with the editor or publisher of a periodical.

In one of these visits he had met Alice Vavasor, and had remained in Town,--I will not say till Alice had promised to share his home in Cambridgeshire, but so long that he had resolved before he went that he would ask her to do so.