42-year-old Evelyn Ferrars, whose family has gone down in the world, is now in India, the unpaid companion and governess in the family of an old friend, Mrs Stanhope. To everyone's amazement she is proposed to by a great railway engineer. James Rowland is a self-made man, who knew as soon as he saw Evelyn that she was "the one". And she finds him interesting and believes she can be a good wife to him. After all his years of hard work, he plans to return home and live the life he always dreamed of when a poor young engineer.This novel is in part the railway man's story - how he obtains a beautiful house in West Scotland, and how he adjusts to the grown children he hasn't seen for years, Marion and Archie - who have been raised very inappropriately for the type of life they will now be living.But really it is Evelyn's story, who loves her husband (though this middle-aged couple never use the word), and is determined to put right much which is wrong. Her husband is disappointed in his children; and their mistrust of herself makes her task harder. But life becomes especially complicated after the arrival of three more young people: Madeline, the daughter of her old friend Lady Leighton, and Rosamund and Eddy Saumarez, the children of an old fiancé who many years ago had abandoned his engagement to Evelyn at the time she needed him most.When later in the novel there is a breach between Rowland and one of his children, Evelyn turns detective to determine what really happened.................Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant (born Margaret Oliphant Wilson) (4 April 1828 - 20 June 1897), was a Scottish novelist and historical writer, who usually wrote as Mrs. Oliphant. Her fictional works encompass "domestic realism, the historical novel and tales of the supernatural". LifeThe daughter of Francis W. Wilson (c. 1788 - 1858), a clerk, and his wife, Margaret Oliphant (c. 1789 - 17 September 1854), she was born at Wallyford, near Musselburgh, East Lothian, and spent her childhood at Lasswade (near Dalkeith), Glasgow and Liverpool. As a girl, she constantly experimented with writing. In 1849 she had her first novel published: Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland. This dealt with the Scottish Free Church movement, with which her parents had sympathised, and which had met with some success. It was followed by Caleb Field in 1851, the year in which she met the publisher William Blackwood in Edinburgh and was invited to contribute to Blackwood's Magazine. The connection would last for her lifetime, during which she contributed well over 100 articles, including a critique of the character of Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.In May 1852, she married her cousin, Frank Wilson Oliphant, at Birkenhead, and settled at Harrington Square, now in Camden, London. Her husband was an artist working mainly in stained glass. Three of their six children died in infancy. The father himself developed alarming symptoms of consumption (tuberculosis). For the sake of his health they moved in January 1859 to Florence, and then to Rome, where he died. His wife, left almost entirely without resources, returned to England and took up the burden of supporting her three remaining children by her literary activity. She had now become a popular writer and worked with notable industry to sustain her position. Unfortunately, her home life was full of sorrow and disappointment. In January 1864 her only remaining daughter Maggie died in Rome and was buried in her father's grave. Her brother, who had emigrated to Canada, was shortly afterwards involved in financial ruin. Mrs Oliphant offered a home to him and his children, adding their support to already heavy responsibilities.In 1866 she settled at Windsor to be near her sons, who were being educated at Eton. That year, her second cousin, Annie Louisa Walker, came to live with her as a companion-housekeeper....