The foregoing Preface was written by Mrs. Ewing for the first edition of
_Brothers of Pity, and Other Tales_. The book contains five stories,
illustrated by the pictures of which my sister speaks; and it is still
sold by the S.P.C.K. "Toots and Boots" was so minutely adapted to
Flinzer's pictures, that the tale suffers in being parted from them.
Still, it is to be hoped that readers of the un-illustrated version will
not have as much difficulty as Toots in solving the mystery of the
Mouse's escape! I have added four more tales of "Beasts and Men" to the
present edition, as they have not been included in any previous
collections of my sister's stories. "A Week Spent in a Glass Pond"
appeared first in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, October 1876, and was
afterwards published separately with coloured illustrations. The habits
of the water beasts are described with the strictest fidelity to nature,
even the delicate differences in character between the Great and the Big
Black water beetles are most accurately drawn.

"Among the Merrows" has not been republished since it came out in _Aunt
Judy's Magazine_, November 1872. At that time the Crystal Palace
Aquarium was a novelty, and the Zoological Station at Naples not fully
formed--but, though the paper is behind the times in statistics, it is
worth retaining for other reasons.

"Tiny's Tricks and Toby's Tricks" as a specimen of versification might
perhaps have been included in the volume of _Verses for Children_, but
it seemed best to keep it with the "Owl Hoots," as these papers were the
last that Mrs. Ewing wrote. The first appeared in _The Child's Pictorial
Magazine_ a few days before her death, and the "Hoots" soon afterwards.
The illustrations to both were drawn by Mr. Gordon Browne at my sister's