_ As may be gathered from the following pages, my title was obtained a a number of years ago, and the story has since been taking form and color in my mind. What has become of the beautiful but discordant face I saw at the concert garden I do not know, but I trust that that the countenance it suggested, and its changes may not prove so vague and unsatisfactory as to be indistinct to the reader. It has looked upon the writer during the past year almost like the face of a living maiden, and I have felt, in a way that would be hard to explain, that I have had but little to do with its expressions, and that forces and influences over which I had no control were moulding character.
The old garden, and the aged man who grew young within it, are not creations, but sacred memories.
That the book may tend to ennoble other faces than that of Ida Mayhew, is the earnest wish of
E. P. Roe.
Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, N. Y. _