WHO WAS LOST AND IS FOUND
A NOVEL
BY
MRS OLIPHANT
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCXCIV
All Rights reserved
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ‘BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE’
| CHAPTER: I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., X., XI., XII., XIII., XIV., XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., XIX., XX., XXI., XXII., XXIII., XXIV. |
WHO WAS LOST AND IS FOUND.
CHAPTER I.
One of the most respected inhabitants of the village, rather of theparish, of Eskholm in Mid-Lothian was Mrs Ogilvy, still often called MrsJames by the elder people who had known her predecessors, who had seenher married, and knew everything about her, her antecedents andbelongings. This is a thing very satisfactory in one way, as giving youan assurance that nothing can be suddenly found out about you, nodisreputable new member or incident foisted into your family life;while, on the other hand, it has its inconveniences, since it becomesmore or less the right of your neighbours to have every new domesticoccurrence explained to them in all its bearings. Great peace, however,had for a long time fallen over the house in which Mrs James Ogilvy wasspending the{2} end of her quiet days: no new incident had occurred therefor years: its daily routine to all appearance went on as cheerfully ascould be desired. It was one of the prettiest houses of theneighbourhood. Built on the side of a little hill, as so many houses arein Scotland, it was a tallish two-storeyed house behind, plunging itsfoundations deep in the soil, with an ample garden lying east and south,full of all the old-fashioned vegetables and most of the old-fashionedflowers of its period. But in front it was the trimmest cottage, low butbroad, opening upon a little round platform encircled by a drive, andthat, in its turn, by closely clipped holly-hedges, as thick as a walland as smooth. Andrew, the gardener, thought it more genteel to fill thelittle flower-border in front with bedding-out plants in thesummer,—red geraniums, blue lobelias, and so forth—never the pansiesand gillyflowers his mistress