In time I myself grew to qualify my ecstasy over the double blessing; for they certainly proved “awful cross patches,” and the sacrifices I was obliged to make to them as a child, only a child I think could fully appreciate. * * * * Do you remember the skeleton in the garret—the _memento mori_ of our play-house banquets? * * * * C. F. * * * * * “C. F.” is my old friend Clara Forest, and I am one of the characters, but it does not matter which one. I shall not appear again in the first person after I have described my first acquaintance with her. It is a long time since I determined to weave the events of her life into a story, and coming across this old letter the other day turned the balance of motives for and against the effort, and I set myself deliberately to work collecting and arranging materials; for this novel is by no means a structure evolved from the depths of my own consciousness. The groundwork is a simple narration of fact, and even the superstructure is real to a great extent. In my early days, Clara was my heroine, my princess, but I worshipped her silently, and she never took any special notice of me until years after our first meeting. I saw her first in a village graveyard one Sunday, between the morning and afternoon services. That was the cheerful spot where the congregations of the different churches walked during the noon recess, discussed funereal subjects, and ate “sweet cake,” to use the New England term of that time. Clara was accompanied by her Sunday-school teacher, named Buzzell—a grim and forbidding woman, I thought. Everybody called her “Miss Buzzell,” though she was a widow; but at that time, among the rural people of New England, it was very common to call married ladies Miss; unmarried ones received no title at all. Clara on this day wore a broad-brimmed white straw hat, with wide rose-colored streamers, a white dress and embroidered tunic of the same, and bronzed gaiters, or boots, as we now call them. She was a solid little girl, with a face round and very freckled, a broad, full brow, full pouting rosy lips, radiant blue-grey eyes, with thick, long lashes, and a nose that was pretty, though a little after the _rétroussé_ order.