clue--the faintest tradition of what went on behind the scenes, and
this dryness as of dust may be transformed into a palpitating drama.
More, the careful comparison of dates alone--that of birth with
marriage, of marriage with death, of one marriage, birth, or death
with a kindred marriage, birth, or death--will often effect the same
transformation, and anybody practised in raising images from such
genealogies finds himself unconsciously filling into the framework
the motives, passions, and personal qualities which would appear to
be the single explanation possible of some extraordinary conjunction
in times, events, and personages that occasionally marks these
reticent family records.

Out of such pedigrees and supplementary material most of the
following stories have arisen and taken shape.

I would make this preface an opportunity of expressing my sense of
the courtesy and kindness of several bright-eyed Noble Dames yet in
the flesh, who, since the first publication of these tales in
periodicals, six or seven years ago, have given me interesting
comments and conjectures on such of the narratives as they have
recognized to be connected with their own families, residences, or
traditions; in which they have shown a truly philosophic absence of
prejudice in their regard of those incidents whose relation has
tended more distinctly to dramatize than to eulogize their
ancestors. The outlines they have also given of other singular
events in their family histories for use in a second "Group of Noble
Dames," will, I fear, never reach the printing-press through me; but
I shall store them up in memory of my informants' good nature.

T. H.