Alfred, as he was known to his intimates, was himself inclined to believe that, in some bygone age, a noble ancestor of his had founded the South Devon sea-side resort of Budleigh Salterton, where one summer he himself spent a happy fortnight. But our own researches[1] have disclosed no earlier trace of his family until Hosea Budd appears, in mid-Victorian days, as a general dealer in the pretty Flintshire village of Llwynphilly. He prospered, and his only son Albert, soon after taking Orders in the Church of England, took to wife Megan Meard, the daughter of a Shropshire corn-factor. The sole issue of this happy union was a boy, christened Alfred Hosea, after his two grandfathers--the future author of _The Oxford Circus_. The Meards, it is interesting to note, boasted a Huguenot origin, and from this strain perhaps was derived our author’s keen appreciation of the language and culture of France. [1] We should like here to acknowledge the devoted help afforded us at the Public Records Office by Miss Agatha Anderleigh, B.Litt., than whom England has no more experienced genealogist. Too delicate by far to be sent to boarding school, Alfred Budd was educated at home by his father, then and still the perpetual curate of Widdleswick, Salop. The boy’s mother unfortunately died while he was still but twelve summers old, but we understand that her influence lived after her, and that her son paid fitting tribute to her pious memory in his charming pen-portrait of Lady Julia Penhaligon. The lad showed promise. Through the kindness of Sir Pontefract Gribble, the village Squire, he was enabled to browse in the well-stocked library of Widdleswick Manor. That he did not waste this splendid opportunity of reading both widely and wisely, not least in the domain of the contemporary novel, readers of his own, alas, posthumous, work of fiction will soon feel confident. But how did Mr. Budd come to write the present volume? the reader may well be tempted to inquire. The circumstances have a melancholy interest all their own. The Rev. Albert Budd had destined his only son to follow him into the ministry of the Church, and so, at the age of seventeen, the boy (for he was no more) was sent to Oxford to compete for an open exhibition at St. Edmund’s Hall. What happened? Perhaps his fragile health had handicapped him in the stern race; perhaps he had devoted too much attention to Sir Pontefract’s collection of modern fiction, and hardly enough to the more apposite writings of Aristotle and Euclid and Origen. Be that as it may, Alfred was unsuccessful in the examination, and, after three whole days in the University city, he left Oxford, as it turned out, for ever. But those three days left an indelible impression upon his quick imagination.