I have left the reader to judge my people; for I think many writers must
feel as I do, that, if characters are at all true to life, there is just
as much uncertainty as to how far they are to blame in any course that
they may have taken as there is in the case of our actual living
contemporaries.

But why then, you may ask, do I write this preface, which must, if
nothing else had done so, destroy any such sense of truth and reality?
Why, my American friends, because I am told that a great many of you
are pleased to wish for some explanation. I am sure you more than
deserve of me some efforts to please you. I seldom have an opportunity
of saying how truly I think so; and besides, even if I had declined to
give it, I know very well that for all my pains you would still have
never been beguiled into the least faith as to the reality of these two
stories!

London, June, 1875.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I. A WATCHER OF LILIES
II. THE LESSON
III. GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS
IV. SWARMS OF CHILDREN