THIS book is the third and last of a trilogy of romances. In that trilogy I have endeavoured to show forth the character of the Virginians—men and women.

In “Dorothy South” I tried to show what the Virginians were while the old life lasted—“before the war.”

In “The Master of Warlock” I endeavoured faithfully to depict the same people as they were during the first half of the Civil War, when their valour seemed to promise everything of results that they desired. In “Evelyn Byrd” I have sought to show the heroism of endurance that marked the conduct of those people during the last half of the war, when disaster stared them in the face and they unfalteringly confronted it.

GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON.