Read it through once

Was _Our Village_ its author’s announcement to all and sundry, that come what might, whether of want, drudgery, or disillusionment, she could still carry her head high, look the world in the face— and smile? Probably it was. A strong case can be made out for the view that, apart altogether from her love of rurality, _Our Village_ was a deliberate glorification of the simple life which had been forced upon her, a deliberate pronouncement that Home was still Home, though it had been transferred from the magnificence of Bertram House with its retinue of servants, to an extremely humble cottage set between a village “general” on the one side and a village inn upon the other.