express, and then go ahead, listening to nobody, unless to one who also perceives clearly your intention. Great and small things does this rule fit. Once in an early tale I sought to make our poor alphabet express the sound of cow-bells, and I wrote that they _tankled_ on the hillside. In the margin I stated my spelling to be intentional. Back it came in the galley, tinkled. A revised proof being necessary, I restored my word with emphasis--and lo, tinkle was returned me again. I appealed to the veteran and well-loved sage at the head of _Harper’s Magazine_. He supported me. Well, in the new Oxford dictionary, behold Tankle and me, two flies in amber, perpetuated by that Supreme Court; I have coined a new acknowledged word for the English language. This should not be told, but for its small moral, and if I could not render a final set of thanks to the living. Countless blunders have been saved me by the watchful eye of the printer and proofreader, those friends I never see, whose names I do not know. For twenty years they have marked places where through carelessness or fatigue I have slipped; may some of them know through this page that I appreciate their service. This book is three years late; the first tale designed for it was published in 1901. Its follower should even now be ready. It is not yet begun; it exists merely in notes and intentions. Give me health and a day, sighs Emerson; and I am sorry for all who have to say that. When you see the new moon over your left shoulder, wish always for health; never mind all the other things. I own to an attachment for the members of this family; I would fain follow their lives a little more, into twentieth century Wyoming, which knows not the cow-boy, and where the cow-boy feels at times more lost than ever he was on the range. Of all the ills that harass writing, plans deferred seem at times the worst; yet great pleasures offset them--the sight of one’s pages in a foreign tongue, meeting horses in the Rocky Mountains named after the members of one’s family, being asked from across the world for further news of some member. Lately a suggestion full of allurement came from one who had read of Sir Francis, the duchess, and the countess, in the _Saturday Evening Post_. (There, by the way, is an intrepid editor!) Why not add, said the reader, a third lady to the group in Jimsy’s pond, and see what they would all do then? Only consider the possibilities! But I dare not. Life, without whose gifts none of us could have a story to tell--not even Scheherezadè--life presented to me Sir Francis and his adoring household. Never could I risk trusting to invention in a matter so delicate. Would the duchess and the countess unite to draw the line at the added sister? Would Sir Francis rise to the emergency? and if so, what line would he take? The added sister might prove a lamb, a minx, or a vixen. You see the possibilities. Dearly should I like to return this