e world to go round with a little more cheer and good will than
is usual. You know--and I know--there are a few who put into life
something more than the bare ingredients. They add a plum here--extra
spice there. They bake it well--and then they trim it up like an
all-the-year-round birthday cake with white frosting, angelica, and red
cherries. Last of all they add the candles and light them so that it glows
warmly and invitingly for all; fine to see, sweet to taste.

Of course, there are not so many people with the art or the will to do
this, and, having done it, they have not always the bigness of heart to
pass it round for the others to share. But I like to make it my business
to find as many as I can; and when I am lucky enough to find one I pop
him--or her--into a book, to have and to hold always as long as books last
and memory keeps green.

Not long ago I was ill--ridiculously ill--and my doctor popped me into a
sanitarium. "Here's the place," I said, "where people are needed to make
the world go round cheerfully, if they are needed anywhere." And so I set
about to get well and find one.

She came--before I had half finished. The first thing I noticed was the
inner light in her--a light as from many candles. It shone all over her
face and made the room brighter for a long time after she had left. The
next thing I noticed was the way everybody watched for her to come
round--everybody turning child again with nose pressed hard against the
window-pane. It made me remember Stevenson's _Lamplighter_; and for many
days there rang in my ears one of his bits of human understanding:

And oh! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night.

Before I knew it I had all the makings of a story. I trailed it through
the mud of gossip and scandal; I followed it to the highroad of adventure
and on to the hills of inspiration and sacrifice. It was all there--ripe
for the plucking; and with the good assistance of Hennessy I plucked it.
Before the story was half written I was well--so much for the healing
grace of a story and the right person to put in it.

This much I have told that you may know that _Leerie_ is as true as all
the best and finest things in the world are true. I am only the passer-on
of life as she has made it--spiced, trimmed, and lighted with many
candles. So if the taste pleases, help yourself bountifully; there is
enough for all. And if you must than