Whats Mines Mine

What's Mine's Mine

The Project Gutenberg EBook of What's Mine's Mine, by George
MacDonald (#20 in our series by George MacDonald)
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Title: What's Mine's Mine
Author: George MacDonald
Release Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5969] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 1, 2002]

Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, WHAT'S
MINE'S MINE ***

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WHAT'S MINE'S MINE
By George MacDonald
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER
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

WHAT'S MINE'S MINE.
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;--let him
rise from these and go to the left of the two windows, for there are two
opposite each other, the room having been enlarged by being built out:
if he be such a one as I would have for a reader, might I choose--a
reader whose heart, not merely his eye, mirrors what he sees--one who
not merely beholds the outward shows of things, but catches a glimpse
of the soul that looks out of them, whose garment and revelation they
are;--if he be such, I say, he will stand, for more than a moment,
speechless with something akin to that which made the morning stars
sing together.

He finds himself gazing far over western seas, while yet the sun is in
the east. They lie clear and cold, pale and cold, broken with islands
scattering thinner to the horizon, which is jagged here and there with
yet another. The ocean looks a wild, yet peaceful mingling of lake and
land. Some of the islands are green from shore to shore, of low yet
broken surface; others are mere rocks, with a bold front to the sea, one
or two of them strange both in form and character. Over the pale blue
sea hangs the pale blue sky, flecked with a few cold white clouds that
look as if they disowned the earth they had got so high--though none
the less her children, and doomed to descend again to her bosom. A
keen little wind is out, crisping the surface of the sea in patches--a
pretty large crisping to be seen from that height, for