Sweethearts at Home

NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS

"When I Turned About—Why, it Nearly Took My Breath Away"

THE EDITOR'S CHAPTERS
I
II
SWEETHEART'S DIARY
I. SWEETHEART OBJECTS
II. PURPLE "THINKS"
III. PRESENTS
IV. MISS POLLY PRETEND
V. PRINCIPIA
VI. TORRES VEDRAS
VII. TORRES THE SECOND
VIII. HUGH JOHN'S PEOPLE
IX. THE NEW SHOP
X. NIPPER NEGLECTS HIS BUSINESS
XI. ELIZABETH
XII. FIGS AND FIG-LEAVES
XIII. "UNTO US AS A DAUGHTER"
XIV. THE HARVEST FAIR
XV. QUIET DAYS
XVI. HUGH JOHN, AMBASSADOR PLENIPOTENTIARY
XVII. THE LITTLE GREEN MAN
XVIII. THE BEAD CURTAIN
XIX. THE DISCONTENT OF MRS. NIPPER DONNAN
XX. TREACHERY!
XXI. ADA WINTER AND "YOUNG MRS. WINTER"
XXII. AN EVENING CALL
XXIII. HONOR THY DAUGHTER!
XXIV. CISSY'S MEANNESS
XXV. "NOT EVEN HUGH JOHN!"
XXVI. HAUNTS REVISITED
XXVII. SIR TOADY RELAPSES
XXVIII. TWICE-TRAVELED PATHS
XXIX. HOME-COMING
XXX. SOME DISCLAIMERS

List of Illustrations

"When I Turned About—Why, it Nearly Took My Breath Away"

"Doing Kow-Tow to This False God"

"Help Her! Me, Butcher Donnan!"

"I Used to Swop Currants and Sugar for Nuts and Lovely Spicy Fruits"

THE EDITOR'S CHAPTERS

HE TELLS HOW IT ALL CAME ABOUT

I

A sleepy Sunday morning—and no need for any one to go to church.

It was at Neuchâtel, under the trees by the lake, that I first became conscious of what wonderful assistance Sweetheart might be to me in my literary work. She corrected me as to the date upon which we had made our pilgrimage to Chaumont, as to the color of the hair of the pretty daughter of the innkeeper whom we had seen there—in her way quite a Swiss Elizabeth Fortinbras. In a word, I became aware that she had kept a diary. Sweetheart, like her nearest literary relative, began with "poetry." That was what we called it then. We have both revised our judgments since. Only Sweetheart has been more wise than I should have been at her age. She has resisted temptation, and rigorously ruled out all verse from the Diary as at present published! This is wonderful. I published mine.

Since then, she and I have been preparing the present volume, just as eagerly as if we had "yielded to the solicitations of numerous friends," as the privately-printed books say.

No, it was quite the contrary with us. Nobody, except one nice publisher, knows anything about it. He asked us to let him print it, and even he has not seen the very least little scrap. All he knows is that Sweetheart has a good many thousand friends scattered up and down two hemispheres, and he believes (as we also are vain enough to believe) that they will not let Sweetheart's Diary go a-begging to be bought.

There is something curiously dreamy about the Lake of Neuchâtel. I knew it and the school down by the pier long ago, when the little town still preserved distinct traces of the hundred and fifty years of Prussian drill-sergeants. Here and there the arms of Brandenburg were to be seen curiously mixed, and almost entwined, with the strong red cross of the Swiss Confederation.