been made into a book at the requests of those I have fortunately
pleased. It is, therefore, to such friends of my writing that they are
addressed and dedicated. However, this is not an effort to avoid my
responsibility: but to whom? Not to critics, not middlemen, nor the
Academies of which I am so reprehensibly ignorant; not, certainly, to
my neighbor. They brought me, in times of varying difficulty, food; and
for that excellent reason I am forced to conclude that, then as now, I
am responsible to my grocer.




CONTENTS

Lonely Valleys
The Egyptian Chariot
The Flower of Spain
Tol'able David
Bread
Rosemary Roselle
The Thrush in the Hedge




LONELY VALLEYS


The maid, smartly capped in starched ruffled muslin and black, who
admitted them to the somber luxury of the rectory, hesitated in