PREFACE

Tile stories eontained in this volume comprise gleanings from the six years of my more or less intermittent work as a writer. Not a few of them were done when I was a student at Ward Seminary, Nashville, Tennessee, and served only as fagots to keep the pot boiling while I pursued the study of drawing and painting. In the course of time, the boiling of the pot became the absorbing question, and drawing and painting had to give place to the steady work of fagot-gathering.

The way that I have trod in pursuit of this work has been a very pleasant one, and the kindly hand that has guided mine throughout is that of Mr. D. G. Fenno, Managing Editor of the Philadelphia Times. In the old studio days when life was young and hope was new, there was a dear friend whose easel sat beside my own, and together we planned our lives. But Another planned, and the lines diverged to meet again when Miss Louise Lewis made the illustrations which add so much to the interest of these pages.

If I write other and better books by and by, will the friends who read this remember that I hoped to do so ? Very truly,

LAVINIA HAKTWELL EGAN.

Shreveport, Louisiana, Deo. 4, 1895.

To my Mother and Father

This, the first fruits of my pen, is

Affectionately dedicated.

lyavinia Hartwell Rg-an.