He was, therefore, a kinsman of yours on the maternal side, and I congratulate you.

Another thing may please you, the success which attended my long and patient research with a view to clearing up the connection between Alice Roussillon's romantic life, as brokenly sketched in M.Roussillon's letter, and the capture of Vincennes by Colonel George Rogers Clark.
Accept, then, this book, which to those who care only for history will seem but an idle romance, while to the lovers of romance it may look strangely like the mustiest history.

In my mind, and in yours I hope, it will always be connected with a breezy summer-house on a headland of the Louisiana gulf coast, the rustling of palmetto leaves, the fine flash of roses, a tumult of mocking-bird voices, the soft lilt of Creole patois, and the endless dash and roar of a fragrant sea over which the gulls and pelicans never ceased their flight, and beside which you smoked while I dreamed.
MAURICE THOMPSON.
JULY, 1900.
Contents I.Under the Cherry Tree II.

A Letter from Afar III.

The Rape of the Demijohn IV.