vi PREFACE

care for such nonsense when they are well
and able to do school work; but perhaps
when they do not feel quite equal to reading
anything very important or improving, they
may like to come and sit on the hearth-rug
by the fire and fancy themselves in fairy land
fora few moments. It is not a bad place,
and after all there is something to be learnt
there, as well as in the lesson books.
Children who cannot learn when at play will
not learn to very much purpose when they
are at work; and the spot where these few
lines are written, reminding us grown-up
people of the delightful tales and legends
which charmed us when we were young,
seems not an unsuitable one for wishing
that the rising generation, among its many
gains, may not lose in that imaginative
power, without which material comforts go
a very little way to making life worth living

whether for rich or poor.
BW.

MELROSE : Azgust 13, 1895.