to keep occasionally in touch with Miss de la
Roche. For a while I seemed highly unsuccessful as her ambassador into the
high court of publishing. Then, one day, lunching with Mr. Alfred Knopf at
a small tavern on Vesey Street (which was subsequently abolished by the New
York City Health Department as being unfit to offer what one of the small
boys in this book calls "nushment") I happened to tell him about Miss de la
Roche's work. I saw his eye, an eye of special clarity and brilliance,
widen and darken with that particular emotion exhibited by a publisher who
feels what is vulgarly known as a "hunch." He said he would "look into" the
matter; and this book is the result._

_The phrase "look into" is perhaps appropriate as applied to this book. For
it is one of those books where the eye of the attentive reader sees more
than a mere sparkling flow of words on a running surface of narrative. Of
course this is not one of those books that "everybody_ must _read." It is
not likely to become fashionable. But it seems to me so truly charming, so
felicitous in subtle touches of humour, so tenderly moved with an
under-running current of wistfulness, that surely it will find its own
lovers; who will be, perhaps, among those who utter the names of Barrie and
Kenneth Grahame with a special sound of voice._

_Perhaps, since I myself was one of a family of three boys, the story of
Angel, Seraph and John, makes a prejudicial claim upon my affection. I must
admit that it is evident the author of the book was never herself a small
boy: sometimes their imperfections are a little too perfect, too femininely
and romantically conceived, to make me feel one of them. They have not
quite the rowdy actuality of Mr. Tarkington's urchins. But the, fact that
the whole story is told with a poet's imagination, and viewed through a
golden cloud of fancy, gives us countervailing beauties that a strictly
naturalistic treatment would miss. Let us not forget that we are in a
"Cathedral Town"; and next door is a Bishop. And certainly in the vigorous
and great-hearted Mary Ellen we stand solidly on the good earth of human
nature "as is."_

_It is not the intention of the introducer to anticipate the reader's
pleasure by selfishly pointing out some of the dainty touches of humour
that will arouse the secret applause of the mind. One thing only occurs to
be said. The scene of the tale is said to be in England. And yet, to the
zealous observer, there will s