"Sometimes visitors came to the house." Nothing much in that to us, but how consummately this child must have studied them; if you consider what she knew of them before the "viacle" arrived to take them back to the station you will never dare to spend another week-end in a house where there may be a novelist of nine years. I am sure that when you left your bedroom this child stole in, examined everything [Pg x] and summed you up. She was particularly curious about the articles on your dressing-table, including the little box containing a reddish powder, and she never desisted from watching you till she caught you dabbing it on your cheeks. This powder, which she spells "ruge," went a little to her head, and it accompanies Ethel on her travels with superb effect. For instance, she is careful to put it on to be proposed to; and again its first appearance is excused in words that should henceforth be serviceable in every boudoir. "I shall put some red ruge on my face said Ethel becouse I am very pale owing to the drains in this house." Those who read will see how the rooms in Hampton Court became the "compartments" in the "Crystale" Palace, and how the "Gaierty" Hotel grew out of the Gaiety Theatre, with many other agreeable changes. The novelist will find the tale a model for his future work. How incomparably, for instance, the authoress dives [Pg xi] into her story at once. How cunningly throughout she keeps us on the hooks of suspense, jumping to Mr Salteena when we are in a quiver about Ethel, and turning to Ethel when we are quite uneasy about Mr Salteena. This authoress of nine is flirting with her readers all the time. Her mind is such a rich pocket that as she digs in it (her head to the side and her tongue well out) she sends up showers of nuggets. There seldom probably was a novelist with such an uncanny knowledge of his characters as she has of Mr Salteena. The first line of the tale etches him for all time: "Mr Salteena was an elderly man of 42 and fond of asking people to stay with him." On the next page Salteena draws a touching picture of himself in a letter accepting an invitation: "I do hope I shall enjoy myself with you. I am fond of digging in the garden and I am parshal to ladies if they are nice I suppose it is my nature. I am not quite a gentleman but you would hardly notice it but can't be helped anyhow." [Pg xii] "When the great morning arrived Mr Salteena did not have an egg for his breakfast in case he should be sick on the journey." For my part I love Mr Salteena, who has a touch of Hamlet, and I wished up to the end that Ethel would make him happy, though I never had much hope after I read the description of Bernard Clark's legs.