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IVPREFACE AND DEDICATION.am trying hard to speak the right word, I seem to heara voice lifted above the " rest, saying: You have madesome of us happy." And so I feel my heart flutteringand my lips trembling, and I have to bow silently andturn away, and hurry back into the obscurity that fitsme best.Phantoms ! Children of dreams !True, my dearFrost ;but ifyoucould see the thousands of lettersthat have come to me from far and near, and all freshfrom the hearts and hands of children, and from menand women who have not forgotten how to be children,you would not wonder at the dream. And sucha dream can do no harm.Insubstantial though it maybe,I would not at this hour itexchange for all thefame won by my mightier brethren of the pen whomI most humbly salute.Measured by the material developments that havecompressed years of experience into the space of a day,thus increasing the possibilities of life, if not its beauty,fifteen years constitute the old age of a book. Such asurvival might almost be said to be due to a tiny sluiceof green sap under the gray bark.Where it lies in thematter of this book, or what its source if, indeed, itbe really thereis more of a mystery to my middle agethan it was to my prime.But it would be no mystery at all if this newedition were to be more popular than the old one. Doyou know why? Because you have taken it under