EFFIE OGILVIE. PUBLISHED BY JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW. * * * * * MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON AND NEW YORK. _London_, _Hamilton, Adams and Co._ _Cambridge_, _Macmillan and Bowes_. _Edinburgh_, _Douglas and Foulis_. * * * * * MDCCCLXXXVI. EFFIE OGILVIE: _THE STORY OF A YOUNG LIFE_. BY MRS. OLIPHANT, AUTHOR OF “CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,” ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. GLASGOW: JAMES MACLEHOSE & SONS, Publishers to the University. LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1886. _All rights reserved._ EFFIE OGILVIE: _THE STORY OF A YOUNG LIFE_. CHAPTER I. The family consisted of Effie’s father, her stepmother, her brother Eric who was in the army, and a little personage, the most important of all, the only child of the second Mrs. Ogilvie, the pet and plaything of the house. You may think it would have been more respectful and becoming to reverse this description, and present Mr. and Mrs. Ogilvie first to the notice of the reader, which we shall now proceed to do. The only excuse we can offer for the irregularity of the beginning consists in the fact that it is the nature of their proceedings in respect to the young people, and particularly to Mr. Ogilvie’s daughter Effie, which induces us to disturb the decorous veil which hangs over the doors of every respectable family, in the case of these worthy persons.