R. B. (I am fully determined either to write the leading novel of the century, or to own and edit a newspaper which shall be a world-power.) The seashore was my first schoolroom. Barby taught me to write in the sand and to spell words with shells and pebbles. I learned Arithmetic by adding and subtracting such things as the sails in the harbor and the gulls feeding at ebb-tide. On stormy days when we were home-bound, I counted the times the fog-bell tolled, or in the early dark counted how often Wood End lighthouse blinked its red eye at me. But I must get on with my story. If I am to have room in this book for all the big happenings of life, which I feel sure lie ahead of me, I cannot devote too much space to early memories, no matter how cherished. Probably in the final revision all the scenes I have lived through will be crowded into one act or chapter. I may start it in this fashion: _Time_ First fifteen years of life just ended. _Place_ An ancient fishing town between the sand-dunes and the sea, where artists flock every summer to paint, its chief attraction for them seeming to be its old streets and wharves, the Cape Cod people whom they call "quaint" and the Portuguese fisher-folk. _Principal characters besides myself and family, already described._ DANIEL DARCY The old Towncrier, whom I call "Uncle Darcy" and love as dearly as if he were really kin to me. AUNT ELSPETH His wife. They are my ideal Darby and Joan. CAPTAIN KIDD A darling Irish terrier, half mine and half Richard's. RICHARD MORELAND Who comes every summer to stay with his cousin, Mr. James Milford, in the bungalow with the Green Stairs. He has been like an own brother to me since the days when we first played pirate together, when he was "Dare-devil Dick, the Dread Destroyer," and I was "Gory George, the Menace of the Main." Barby took him under her wing then because his own mother was dead and they've been devoted to each other ever since. This summer Richard came alone, because his father, who always spends his vacations with him, did not come back from his Paris studio as usual. He is in the trenches now, fighting with the Allies. His friends shake their heads when they speak of him, and say what a pity such a brilliantly gifted fellow should run the risk of being killed or maimed. It would be such a terrible waste. He could serve his age better with his brush than a bayonet. But when Richard talks of him his face lights up as if he fairly worships him for being such a hero as to sacrifice his art for the cause and go in just as a private. He has said to me a dozen times, "That is why the Allies will win this war, Georgina, because men like _Dad_ are putting it through. They are fighting with their souls as well as their bodies."