PREFACE
_ Critic on the Hearth:
No one but myself knows what I have suffered, nor what my books have gained, by your unsleeping watchfulness and admirable pertinacity. And now here is a volume that goes into the world and lacks your _imprimatur_: a strange thing in our joint lives； and the reason of it stranger still! I have watched with interest, with pain, and at length with amusement, your unavailing attempts to peruse _The Black Arrow_； and I think I should lack humour indeed, if I let the occasion slip and did not place your name in the fly-leaf of the only book of mine that you have never read--and never will read.
That others may display more constancy is still my hope. The tale was written years ago for a particular audience and (I may say) in rivalry with a particular author； I think I should do well to name him, Mr. Alfred R. Phillips. It was not without its reward at the time. I could not, indeed, displace Mr. Phillips from his well-won priority； but in the eyes of

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