Dear readers, I pray you accept this last word from me: “Poor even in thanks”—the thanks with which the heart is burdened but cannot speak. The acts of kindness shown during these waiting, and oft weary years, that crowd and clamor for expression, would duplicate this volume many times, and the cherished names that the hand struggles to write, would turn these pages into a biographical dictionary.

Let me pray, then, that every person who takes up this volume and recalls a kind act done me, or a friendly, encouraging word spoken in all the years of the busy period which it covers, shall read between the lines, the cherished memory, the thanks, and the blessing so richly deserved and so fully given.