"Are they as good as the first?" I inquired.

"Better chosen, and better handled," replied Eustace Bright.
"You will say so when you read them."

"Possibly not," I remarked. "I know from my own experience,
that an author's last work is always his best one, in his own
estimate, until it quite loses the red heat of composition.
After that, it falls into its true place, quietly enough. But
let us adjourn to my study, and examine these new stories. It
would hardly be doing yourself justice, were you to bring me
acquainted with them, sitting here on this snow bank!"

So we descended the hill to my small, old cottage, and shut
ourselves up in the south-eastern room, where the sunshine
comes in, warmly and brightly, through the better half of a
winter's day. Eustace put his bundle of manuscript into my
hands; and I skimmed through it pretty rapidly, trying to find
out its merits and demerits by the touch of my fingers, as a
veteran story-teller ought to know how to do.

It will be remembered that Mr. Bright condescended to avail
himself of my literary experience by constituting me editor of
the "Wonder-Book." As he had no reason to complain of the
reception of that erudite work by the public, he was now
disposed to retain me in a similar position with respect to the
present volume, which he entitled TANGLEWOOD TALES. Not, as
Eustace hinted, that there was any real necessity for my
services as introducer, inasmuch as his own name had become
established in some good degree of favor with the literary