e coals and the fire-place before one
to look at? I dare say neither Hans Andersen nor Grimm nor any of those
fellows would have written anything, if they had not gone about into
caves and forests and those sort of places, or boated in the North
Seas!" Aunt Judy replied that she also had been looking into the fire,
and the longer she did so, the more she decided "that Hans Andersen was
not beholden to caves or forests or any curious things or people for his
story-telling inspirations"; but as it was difficult for the "little
ones" to write she enclosed three tales as "jokes, imitations, in fact,
of the Andersenian power of spinning gold threads out of old tow-ropes."
So far this was Mrs. Gatty's own writing, but the three tales were the
work of the real Aunt Judy, Mrs. Ewing herself. These three are (1)
_The Smut_, (2) _The Crick_, (3) _The Brothers_. The last sentence in
_The Brothers_ recalls the last entry in Mrs. Ewing's commonplace book,
which is quoted in her Life--"If we still love those we lose, can we
altogether lose those we love?"

_Cousin Peregrine's Wonder Stories_ and _Traveller's Tales_ were written
after Mrs. Ewing's marriage, with the help of her husband; he supplied
the facts and descriptions from things which he had seen during his long
residence abroad. Colonel Ewing also helped my sister in translating the
_Tales of the Khoja_ from the Turkish. The illustrations now reproduced
were drawn by our brother, Alfred Scott-Gatty.

In _Little Woods_ and _May-Day Customs_ Mrs. Ewing showed her ready
ability to take up any subject of interest that came under her
notice--botany, horticulture, archaeology, folk-lore, or whatever it
might be. The same readiness was shown in her adaptation of the various
versions of the _Mumming Play_, or _The Peace Egg_.

_In Memoriam_ was written under considerable restraint soon after our
Mother's death. My sister knew that she did not wish her biography to be
written, but still it was impossible to let the originator and editor of
_Aunt Judy's Magazine_ pass away without some little record being given
to the many children who loved her writings. In Ecclesfield Church
there is a tablet erected to Mrs. Gatty's memory by one thousand
children, who each contributed sixpence.

_The Snarling Princess_ and _The Little Parsnip Man_ are adaptations of
two fairy tales which appeared in a German magazine; and as both the
tales and their illustrations took Mrs. Ewing's fancy, she made