This combined compendium synthesizes the extract’s narrative action, principal characters, settings, and recurrent themes, treating Home As Found as a social study that uses episodic incident to probe provincialism, public opinion, and private obligation.

Setting and principal figures
The Effinghams have returned from Europe to New York and their country seat, the Wigwam, near Templeton. Central figures are Eve Effingham (Europe‑bred heroine), the patriarch Mr. Effingham, the ironical John Effingham, cousin Grace Van Cortlandt, the French governess Mademoiselle Viefville, opportunist Aristabulus Bragg, seaman Captain Truck, Sir George Templemore, and the ambiguous Paul Powis. Episodes alternate between urban assemblies and a pastoral circuit—most prominently a lake excursion on Otsego, where natural tableaux (the Silent Pine, Speaking Rocks, Fairy Spring), local lore (Natty Bumppo, the “sogdollager”), and convivial picnics furnish a counterpoint to town life.

Social tableaux and civic life
The narrative satirizes American provincialism: a tendency to imitate imported fashions without the civil foundations of European refinement, and to allow prevailing conditions—wealth, ignorance, opinion—to self‑perpetuate. Domestic assemblies, Mrs. Legend’s literary soirée, and the contrast between affected “Hajji” continentalism and sincere civility (Mrs. Hawker, Captain Truck) exemplify the social contrasts. Public crises dramatize civic weakness: a New York conflagration exposes speculative mania and attachment to money; at Templeton a contentious dispute over Fishing Point—stoked by Aristabulus Bragg and the editor Steadfast Dodge—tests the relation of the popular voice to private rights, revealing the fragility of institutions when opinion substitutes for lawful inquiry.

Mystery, confession, and legal settlement
Interleaved with scenic description and civic debate is a personal mystery. Papers and a miniature among the Effingham effects lead to a charged discovery: Paul Powis is revealed to be John Effingham’s son, born of a youthful union with Mildred Warrender when John assumed the alias Assheton. John’s belated confession, corroborated by letters, parish testimony, and the likeness of Mildred, converts private guilt into formal restitution. Eve, decisive and morally courageous, destroys a will (with knowledge of John) to secure Paul’s inheritance; John executes a new will and, with Mr. Effingham, arranges property settlements to equalize claims.

Resolution and themes
The story closes on domestic reconciliation and a double wedding—Paul to Eve, Sir George to Grace—amid village curiosity and satirical chorus (Mrs. Abbott, Dodge, the commodore). Practical legal measures buttress moral reconciliation, while recurring satire of small‑town gossip, pretension, and the spectacle of public opinion underscore the book’s thesis: the young republic’s manners and institutions reveal both sturdy sincerity and the persistent infirmities of provincial life, where appearance, rumor, and imitation often stand between truth and justice.