day a happy one. In
the years of after life neither of you will speak or think of Ovid and
his tender verses without recalling at the same moment how of a
gracious afternoon in distant time you sat side by side contemplating
the ineffably precious promises of maturity and love."

I am not sure that I do not approve that article in Judge Methuen's
creed which insists that in this life of ours woman serves a
probationary period for sins of omission or of commission in a previous
existence, and that woman's next step upward toward the final eternity
of bliss is a period of longer or of shorter duration, in which her
soul enters into a book to be petted, fondled, beloved and cherished by
some good man--like the Judge, or like myself, for that matter.

This theory is not an unpleasant one; I regard it as much more
acceptable than those so-called scientific demonstrations which would
make us suppose that we are descended from tree-climbing and bug-eating
simians. However, it is far from my purpose to enter upon any argument
of these questions at this time, for Judge Methuen himself is going to
write a book upon the subject, and the edition is to be limited to two
numbered and signed copies upon Japanese vellum, of which I am to have
one and the Judge the other.

The impression I made upon Uncle Cephas must have been favorable, for
when my next birthday rolled around there came with it a book from
Uncle Cephas--my third love, Grimm's "Household Stories." With the
perusal of this monumental work was born that passion for fairy tales
and folklore which increased rather than diminished with my maturer
years. Even at the present time I delight in a good fairy story, and I
am grateful to Lang and to Jacobs for the benefit they have conferred
upon me and the rest of English-reading humanity through the medium of
the fairy books and the folk tales they have translated and compiled.
Baring-Gould and Lady Wilde have done noble work in the same realm; the
writings of the former have interested me particularly, for together
with profound learning in directions which are specially pleasing to
me, Baring-Gould has a distinct literary touch which invests his work
with a grace indefinable but delicious and persuasive.

I am so great a lover of and believer in fairy tales that I once
organized a society for the dissemination of fairy literature, and at
the first meeting of this society we resolved to demand of the board of
education to