etween
the bar in the bay and the shore, the scene of a famous wreck before
the Revolution. As my stories and novels were never in touch with my
actual life, they seem now as if they were written by a ghost of
their time. It is to strangers from strange places that I owe the most
sympathetic recognition. Some have come to me, and from many I have
had letters that warmed my heart, and cheered my mind. Beside the name
of Mr. Lowell, I mention two New England names, to spare me the
fate of the prophet of the Gospel, the late Maria Louise Pool, whose
lamentable death came far too early, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who
lived to read "The Morgesons" only, and to write me a characteristic
letter. With some slight criticism, he wrote, "Pray pardon my
frankness, for what is the use of saying anything, unless we say what
we think?... Otherwise it seemed to me as genuine and lifelike as
anything that pen and ink can do. There are very few books of which
I take the trouble to have any opinion at all, or of which I
could retain any memory so long after reading them as I do of 'The
Morgesons.'"

Could better words be written for the send-off of these novels?

ELIZABETH STODDARD. New York, May 2nd, 1901.

TO MRS. KATHARINE HOOKER

OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

THESE NOVELS ARE DEDICATED IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF A KIND DEED

ELIZABETH STODDARD

CHAPTER I.

"That child," said my aunt Mercy, looking at me with indigo-colored
eyes, "is possessed."

When my aunt said this I was climbing a chest of drawers, by its
knobs, in order to reach the book-shelves above it, where my favorite
work, "The Northern Regions," was kept, together with "Baxter's
Saints' Rest," and other volumes of that sort, belonging to my mother;
and those my father bought for his own reading, and which I liked,
though I only caught a glimpse of their meaning by strenuous study.
To this day Sheridan's Comedies, Sterne's Sentimental Journey, and
Captain Cook's Voyages are so mixed up in my remembrance that I am
still uncertain whether it was Sterne who ate baked dog with Maria, or
Sheridan who wept over a dead ass in the Sandwich Islands.

After I had made a dash at and captured my book, I seated myself with
difficulty on the edge of the chest of drawers, and was soon lost in
an Esquimaux hut. Presently, in crossing my feet, my shoes, which were
large, dropped on the painted floor with a loud noise. I looked at my
aunt; her regards were still f