Now, readers in general, I have had time to consider what to tell you
about, and how to begin. My story will be rather about my family than
myself now. I was as it were a little withdrawn, even by the time of which
I am about to write. I had settled into a gray-haired, quite elderly, yet
active man--young still, in fact, to what I am now. But even then, though
my faith had grown stronger, life had grown sadder, and needed all my
stronger faith; for the vanishing of beloved faces, and the trials of them
that are dear, will make even those that look for a better country both for
themselves and their friends, sad, though it will be with a preponderance
of the first meaning of the word _sad_, which was _settled_, _thoughtful_.

I am again seated in the little octagonal room, which I have made my study
because I like it best. It is rather a shame, for my books cover over every
foot of the old oak panelling. But they make the room all the pleasanter
to the eye, and after I am gone, there is the old oak, none the worse, for
anyone who prefers it to books.

I intend to use as the central portion of my present narrative the history
of a year during part of which I took charge of a friend's parish, while
my brother-in-law, Thomas Weir, who was and is still my curate, took the
entire charge of Marshmallows. What led to this will soon appear. I will
try to be minute enough in my narrative to make my story interesting,
although it will cost me suffering to recall some of the incidents I have
to narrate.