possible for a creed to be. She never tried to force them upon any one
else; possibly she did not believe in them herself sufficiently to wish
to do so; but like her queer gowns and her dyed red hair her creed
suited Mrs. Ogilvie. There was a congruous incongruity about her which
set many people puzzling to find out her real character. Pompous
persons and snobs detested her. Stupid or vapid people saw nothing in
her, or saw merely that she dyed her hair and was dressed by Paquin.
Narrow-minded people disapproved of her, and clever people considered
her one of the most striking, if not one of the most agreeable
personalities of the day. Women hardly ever understood her; but they
respected any one who dressed as well as she did, and they had an
undeclared admiration for a woman who could hold so lightly possessions
which they believed to be all-important, and which Mrs. Ogilvie seemed
to find so trivial.

The house and its gardens were open once a week to visitors, and the
country neighbours brought their guests and strangers to see it, their
pleasure in showing off Mrs. Ogilvie's possessions being somewhat
tempered by timidity; while those who came to pay a call on the chance
of finding her at home would sometimes say with an air of courage and
independence to a friend, 'Mrs. Ogilvie is considered rather alarming,
you know, but it really is only her manner.' She played her part as
country neighbour conscientiously. Once a year she gave a sumptuous
garden-party, all other garden-parties in the neighbourhood being dated
by it. And when Peter was a little boy there were children asked to
the house to play games with him, and later there were dances and balls.

Peter accepted his mother, his property, and his position on what he
himself would probably have called their most cheery side. He valued
Bowshott because there was excellent hunting to be got there; just as
he loved his place in Scotland because of the stalking and the fishing
and the shooting, but that they were magnificent or enviable never
entered his head. Fate had dealt very kindly with him, and its
kindliness had provoked a charming geniality in the character of the
young man whom it had treated with such lavish good fortune. Taking it
all round, Peter considered this world an excellent one, and most of
the people in it very good sorts indeed. He accepted his mother as he
accepted everything else, with a simple-heartedness which never looked
belo