  A NOVEL By Author of "The Web of Time"
New York Chicago Toronto
Copyright, 1909, by
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
To
FOREWORD This story, which the authoress herself entitled "The Attic Guest," would probably have never been given to the world but for an incidental visit which I paid to a certain manse. It was then and there that the following chapters, now first presented to the public, were entrusted to my hands. The hands which placed the manuscript in my own were those of a lady of much charm, modest, cultured, winsome; and no one could know her without feeling that her qualities of heart were even greater than of intellect. She was a minister's wife, as I need hardly say; and the busy years in that most mellow of all vineyards had given her face much of its own spiritual beauty, something of the deep harvest-joy shining through her eyes. Tranquil eyes were hers, chastened by many a sorrow, yet aglow with a native merriment that the stern schooling of a lifetime seemed powerless to subdue. She asked that I would read her story; "and send it forth," said she, "if your heart approve." Her plea for asking this service at my hands was that I had had some humble association with the world of letters. Mayhap she thought this pleased me well—and perhaps it did. I urged her to send her book forth with her own name upon it—but this she firmly refused. She shrank from the publicity it would involve, she said, as must any Southern lady. I believed her implicitly. "Especially," she went on—dwelling earnestly on this—"since my book is the frank and artless story of the most sacred things of life, of a woman's life at that. Some will smile," said she, "and some deride, and many disbelieve; but the story is the story of my inmost work and life and love. Let it see the light if you think it worthy." I promised; and thus my promise is redeemed and my humble part is done. ROBERT E. KNOWLES.
CONTENTS I. The Light Fantastic
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