Still, if any mere thing could be supposed capable of answering for itself, I think a book might; and so perhaps as you take this book of mine into your hand, and run away to some quiet place to have a look at it, you may be taking it into your confidence, and asking it some such questions as these: (_a_) What are you all about? Are you a lesson-book? (_b_) Have you any stories--real stories, not made-up ones? (_c_) Any pictures? (_d_) I wonder whether I shall like you? Does the person who made you like children, and know the sort of things they care for? Now before you put any more questions to my book, I will answer for it; and that we may not miss any, we will call them questions (_a_), (_b_), (_c_), (_d_), and answer one at a time. Your first question (_a_)--the first part of it at least--is what grown people as well as children have a right to ask of a book; and it would be a poor thing for the book to answer, "Oh, I am about nothing in particular! I can't quite tell you why I was written." But most books are about something in particular, and what that is you can best find out by reading them right through; for many people miss their way in a book by beginning at the end and travelling backwards, or beginning about the middle, and not knowing whether to go backwards or forwards. So you see I want you to find out for yourself the answer to question (_a_), only I will just say that the book is mostly about your own dwelling-place. I do not mean your body, though that is, in one sense, your dwelling-place; neither do I mean your own home, nor even that part of England where you were born. By your own dwelling-place I mean this wonderful world which you see all around you, where God has made so much for you to see and enjoy; and learn about too, that you may use and enjoy it better. [Illustration: GOOD-BYE TO THE SWALLOWS] So you will find in this book something about the firm ground upon which you trod as soon as you were old enough to run about the fields and pick the daisies. Something too about the blue sky, where the lark sings and the swallows fly; and the great wide sea, where the fishes live; and a little about what the Bible tells us of how all that you see around you came to be; long, long ago, when everything was quite new and beautiful, and God said that all that He had made was "very good." "Then it is a lesson-book?" I hear you say. Yes, in one way, and yet not quite all lessons, for you will find some stories here too. And now I must answer the (_b_) question about these same stories, for I want you to know, before you begin to read them, that they are all true, and there is no pretending or making-up about them.