Dedication:
This my book, the first-born of my pen, I dedicate to my Father, who wrote sweeter fantasies than ever I can hope to, and who once, some four summers gone, did write of me, his daughter, thus:
'For to a few of you she is still my "Baby Daughter." - to very many of you she is still "Little Barbara." and yet it is fifteen years since she came to us. It seems but yesterday, and now she is weaving fancies and dreaming dreams, so leading me to hope that my mantle, patched and threadbare though perhaps it is, may fall upon her, and on her shoulder become a robe of living song.'
