THE MYSTERY of BLENCARROW
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT.
CHICAGO:
DONOHUE, HENNEBERRY & CO.
407-425 Dearborn St.{1}
| Chapter: I., II., III, IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., X. |
THE
MYSTERY OF MRS. BLENCARROW.
CHAPTER I.
THE BLENCARROW HOUSEHOLD.
The house of Blencarrow, which, without being one of the great houses ofthe county, was as comfortable and handsome as a country gentleman notexactly of the highest importance could desire, stood in a pretty littlepark of its own, by the side of a bright little mountain river, eitherin Cumberland or Westmoreland or North Lancashire—for the boundariesof{2} these counties are to me somewhat confused, and I cannot aver whereone ends and another begins. It was built, as is not unusual inNorth-country houses, on the slope of a hill, so that the principalrooms, which were on a level with the great entrance, were on the otherside elevated by at least one lofty story from the flower-garden whichsurrounded the house. The windows of the drawing-room commanded thus adelightful view over a finely diversified country, ending in the fardistance in a glimpse of water with a range of blue hills behind, whichwas one of the great lakes of that beautiful district. When sun or mooncaught this distant lake, which it did periodically at certain times ofthe day and night, according to the season, it flashed suddenly intolife, like one of those new signals of{3} science by which the sun himselfis made to interpret between man and man. In the foreground the trees ofthe park clustered over the glimpses of the lively North-country river,which, sometimes shallow and showing all its pebbles, some timesdeepening into a pool, ran cheerfully by towards the lake. To the right,scarcely visible save when the trees were bare in winter, the red roofsof the little post-town, a mile and a half away, appeared in thedistance with a pleasant sense of neighbourhood. But the scenery, afterall, was not so interesting as the people inside.
They were, however, a very innocent, very simple, and unexciting groupof country people. Mrs. Blencarrow had been a widow for five or sixyears, having lived there for some dozen years before,{4} the most belovedof wives. She was not a native of the district, but had come from theSouth, a beautiful girl, to whom her husband, who was a plain gentlemanof simple character and manners, could never be sufficiently gratefulfor having married him. The ladies of the district thought thissentiment exaggerated, but everybody acknowledged that Mrs. Blencarrowmade him an excellent wife. When he died he had left everything in herhands—the entire guardianship of the children, untrammelle