Do you remember my telling you, one afternoon that you sat upon the
hearthstool at Florence, the story of Mrs. Oke of Okehurst?

You thought it a fantastic tale, you lover of fantastic things, and urged
me to write it out at once, although I protested that, in such matters, to
write is to exorcise, to dispel the charm; and that printers' ink chases
away the ghosts that may pleasantly haunt us, as efficaciously as gallons
of holy water.

But if, as I suspect, you will now put down any charm that story may
have possessed to the way in which we had been working ourselves up,
that firelight evening, with all manner of fantastic stuff--if, as I
fear, the story of Mrs. Oke of Okehurst will strike you as stale and
unprofitable--the sight of this little book will serve at least to remind
you, in the middle of your Russian summer, that there is such a season
as winter, such a place as Florence, and such a person as your friend,

VERNON LEE

Kensington, _July_ 1886.




1


That sketch up there with the boy's cap? Yes; that's the same woman. I
wonder whether you could guess who she was. A singular being, is she not?
The most marvellous creature, quite, that I have ever met: a wonderful