, and cherishing the fancies that
are indeed "the trailing clouds of glory" he brings with him "from God
who is his home."_

_The rhythm of verse will charm his senses even in his baby days;
later on he will feel the beauty of some exquisite lyric phrase as
keenly as you do, for the ear will have been opened and will be
satisfied only with what is finest and best._

_The second division of the book "Little Prince and Princess" will
take the children out of the nursery into the garden, the farmyard,
and the world outside the Palace, where they will meet and play with
their fellows in an ever-widening circle of social activity. "Baby's
Hush-a-byes" in cradle or mother's lap will now give place to the
quiet cribside talks called "The Palace Bed Time" and "The Queen
Mother's Counsel"; and in the story hour "The Palace Jest-Book" will
furnish merriment for the youngsters who laughed the year before over
the simpler nonsense of Mother Goose._

_When the pinafores themselves are cast aside Pinafore Palace will be
outgrown, and you can find something better suited to the developing
requirements of the nursery folk in "The Posy Ring." Then the third
volume in our series--"Golden Numbers"--will give boys and girls from
ten to fifteen a taste of all the best and soundest poetry suitable to
their age, and after that they may enter on their full birthright,
"the rich deposit of the centuries."_

_No greater love for a task nor happiness in doing it, no more ardent
wish to please a child or meet a mother's need, ever went into a book
than have been wrought into this volume and its three predecessors. We
hope that it will find its way into the nurseries where wealth has
provided every means of ministering to the young child's growth in
body, mind, and soul; and if some of the Pinafore Palaces should be
neat little kitchens, what joy it would be to think of certain young
queen-mothers taking a breath between tasks to sit by the fire and
read to their royal babies while the bread is baking, the kettle
boiling, or the potatoes bubbling in the pot._

_"Where does Pinafore Palace stand?
Right in the middle of Lilliput Land."_

_And Lilliput Land is (or ought to be) the freeest country in the
universe. Its shining gates open wide at dawn, closing only at sunset,
and toddling pilgrims with eager faces enter and wander about at will.
Decked in velvet or clad in rags the friendly porter pays no heed, for
the pinafores hide all