ers and modes of thought which mark the age we live in.

Opportunities of society as well as natural inclination have alike
disposed me to such studies. I have stood over the game of life very
patiently for many a year, and though I may have grieved over the narrow
fortune which has prevented me from "cutting in," I have consoled myself
by the thought of all the anxieties defeat might have cost me, all the
chagrin I had suffered were I to have risen a loser. Besides this,
I have learned to know and estimate what are the qualities which win
success in life, and what the gifts by which men dominate above their
fellows.

If in the world of well-bred life the incidents and events be fewer,
because the friction is less than in the classes where vicissitudes of
fortune are more frequent, the play of passion, the moods of temper,
and the changeful varieties of nature are often very strongly developed,
shadowed and screened though they be by the polished conventionalities
of society. To trace and mark these has long constituted one of the
pleasures of my life; if I have been able to impart even a portion of
that gratification to my reader, I will not deem the effort in vain, nor
the "Fortunes of Glencore" a failure.

Let me add that although certain traits of character in some of
the individuals of my story may seem to indicate sketches of real
personages, there is but one character in the whole book drawn entirely
from life.

This is Billy Traynor. Not only have I had a sitter for this picture,
but he is alive and hearty at the hour I am writing. For the others,
they are purely, entirely fictitious. Certain details, certain
characteristics, I have of course borrowed,--as he who would mould a
human face must needs have copied an eye, a nose, or a chin from some
existent model; but beyond this I have not gone, nor, indeed, have I
found, in all my experience of life, that fiction ever suggests what
has not been implanted unconsciously by memory; originality in the
delineation of character being little beyond a new combination of old
materials derived from that source.

I wish I could as easily apologize for the faults and blemishes of my
story as I can detect and deplore them; but, like the failings in
one's nature, they are very often difficult to correct, even when
acknowledged. I have, therefore, but to throw myself once more upon the
indulgence which, "old offender" that I am, has never forsaken me, and
subscribe myself