2
E
By George MacDonald
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
I. HOW COME THEY THERE?
II. A SHORT GLANCE OVER THE SHOULDER
III. THE GIRLS' FIRST WALK
IV. THE SHOP IN THE VILLAGE
V. THE CHIEF
VI. WORK AND WAGE
VII. MOTHER AND SON
VIII. A MORNING CALL
IX. MR. SERCOMBE
X. THE PLOUGH-BULLS
XI. THE FIR-GROVE
XII. AMONG THE HILLS
XIII. THE LAKE
XIV. THE WOLVES
XV. THE GULF THAT DIVIDED
XVI. THE CLAN CHRISTMAS
XVII. BETWEEN DANCING AND SUPPER
CHAPTER I.
HOW COME THEY THERE?
The room was handsomely furnished, but such as I would quarrel with none for calling common, for it certainly was uninteresting. Not a thing in it had to do with genuine individual choice, but merely with the fashion and custom of the class to which its occupiers belonged. It was a dining-room, of good size, appointed with all the things a dining-room "ought" to have, mostly new, and entirely expensive--mirrored sideboard in oak; heavy chairs, just the dozen, in fawn-coloured morocco seats and backs--the dining-room, in short, of a London-house inhabited by rich middle-class people. A big fire blazed in the low round-backed grate, whose flashes were reflected in the steel fender and the ugly fire-irons that were never used. A snowy cloth of linen, finer than ordinary, for there was pride in the housekeeping, covered the large dining-table, and a company, evidently a family, was eating its breakfast. But how come these people THERE?
For, supposing my reader one of the company, let him rise from the well-appointed table--its silver, bright as the complex motions of butler's elbows can make it; its china, ornate though not elegant; its ham, huge, and neither too fat nor too lean; its game-pie, with nothing to be desired in composition, or in flavour natural or artificial;--le