he
distinction because of the reason I have just stated and because also in
a way of speaking it qualifies me for some sort of literary kinship with
Sir James M. Barrie.

Even so I do not aspire to the presumptuous hope that any one may say
"Well, I see this man Cobb is doing for Miss Ashford's second book what
Barrie did for her first one." I have no such ambition. A minnow always
errs when he undertakes to swim in the company of a whale. If he tries
to swim alongside he is unnoticed; if he swims in the wake he is
swamped. He makes other minnows jealous or contemptuous as the case may
be, and he is properly ignored by the whale.

Miss Ashford's own preface, accompanying this volume, gives the
chronological sequences of its contents. The first story of all, "A
Short Story of Love and Marriage," she wrote when she was eight years
old. "The True History of Leslie Woodcock" was written three years
later, after "The Young Visiters" had been written. "Where Love Lies
Deepest" trickled from the busy pen of the young person when she was
twelve years old; and "The Hangman's Daughter," the most pretentious of
them all and to my way of thinking the best of her preserved works next
only to "The Young Visiters," was undertaken when she was about
thirteen, she says, and finished in the following year. Also included in
this book is a story by Miss Ashford's sister Angela, done at the age of
eight and entitled "The Jealous Governes; _or_ The Granted Wish." In
this we learn the real facts regarding the coming of babies. Babies are
not fetched by storks. Medical men bring them in boxes and afterward
render bills for the same, as note the following: (page 330) "Miss
Junick Dr. to doctor Paulin for one baby delivered as per agreement L1,"
a low enough price truly. If a child of eight (who in point of years is
so very much closer to being a baby than most of the writers on the
subject are) cannot be trusted to recall the circumstances of this
mystery, who can? We can only regret that a second sister, Vera, the
artist of this talented nursery, did not save her one contribution to
the literary output of the Ashford family. It was entitled "Little Mary
and The Angle." _Angle_ did not refer to a worm but to a visitor from a
celestial domain; we have the word of Miss Daisy Ashford for it that
this story was of a pious character. What a wonderful household the
Ashford household must have been with Daisy and Angela writing romances
and Vera ill