The pantry was locked, and regular meals at regular periods were prescribed. Indeed, poems with dreadful morals for those who ate between meals were recited to me, endeavor being made thereby to substitute terror for inclination. Any reasonable child will find many such parallel instances of the assumed omnipotence of "grownups." With this awful indictment before me, you ask me, a "grown-up," to write an introduction for the "Firelight Fairy Book," and thereby to assume the responsibility for passing judgment upon it. There is but one circumstance that makes me willing to do so. I believe that where any nice "grown-up" is concerned, if you crack the hard outside shell with which circumstances have surrounded him, beneath it you will find a child. Banking on this, I venture to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the "Firelight Fairy Book." I liked particularly the story of the poor little prince, whose sneezing had such a disastrous effect; and the lost half hour is unquestionably an accurate historical account, because no one could have described so accurately, simply from imagination, what a lost temper looked like. What makes me even more willing to advance my opinion is that I do not stand alone. My conclusions are supported by a jury of my peers, for I have given the book as a Christmas gift, not only to my own children, but to other people's children, and to one of the prominent Senators of the United States. They have universally acclaimed it, and who can question the judgment of such a jury? Good luck to the "Firelight Fairy Book." May it, like Scrooge's laugh in the "Christmas Carol," "be the father of a long, long line of brilliant" books of a like nature for the enjoyment of all true children, whether they be still at day school, or sitting in the high places of the world. Believe me, Yours very truly, THEODORE ROOSEVELT HENRY BESTON, ESQ. Topsfield, Mass. HOW THE NEW FAIRY TALES CAME TO BE WRITTEN Some twenty years ago, in a pleasant old town by the sea, lived a lad who was very, very fond of fairy tales. When he had read all the fairy-books which his parents and his uncles and his cousins and his sisters and his aunts had been kind enough to give him, he turned to the town library and read every single fairy tale he could find mentioned in the catalogue. But there was an end even to this treasure; and, finally, a day came when the fairy-tale lover could find no new tales to read. Every Christmas he would peek at the new books in the bookshops, only to find the same old stories printed, with new pictures, meant to please grown-ups. What could be the matter? Had the fairies all gone away, or locked the doors of Fairyland? Where, where, where were the new stories, and why, why, why did n't people write them?