OLD KENSINGTON
BY MISS THACKERAY
LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO.,
15 WATERLOO PLACE
1908.
[All rights reserved]
Oh! life, not death, for which we pant,
More life and fuller that I want.
A DEDICATION
TO SOME NEW FRIENDS.
Sometimes new friends meet one along the mid-way of life, and comeforward with sweet unknown faces and with looks that seem strangelyfamiliar to greet us.
To some of these new friends I must dedicate my story. It was begun tenyears ago, and is older than my god-daughter Margie herself, who is theoldest among them. She is playing with her sister and her little cousinsin the sunny Eton nurseries. Harry has a crown on. Annie is a queen whoflies on errands. Ada and Lilly are Court ladies.
My neighbour Dolly and the little Dorotheas, however, have a first rightto a presentation copy. It is true that the little ones cannot read, butthey need not regret it; for Margie will take them on her knee and showthem the pictures, and Georgie and Stella and Molly shall stand roundtoo, and dark-eyed little Margaret can tell them her own sweet littlestories, while Francis chimes in from the floor. Eleanor cannot talk,but she can sing; and so can our Laura at home and her song is her own;a sweet home song; the song of all children to those who love them. Ittells of the past, and one day brings it back without a pang; it tellsof a future, not remorselessly strange and chill and unknown, but boundto us by a thousand hopes and loving thoughts—a kingdom-come for usall, not of strangers, but of little children. And meanwhile Laura,measures the present with her soft little fingers as she beats time uponher mother's hand to her own vague music.
8 Southwell Gardens: March 20, 1873
CONTENTS.
A DEDICATION
CHAPTER I. Bricks and Ivy
CHAPTER II. Dutch Tiles
CHAPTER III. To Old Street by the Lanes
CHAPTER IV. An Afternoon at Penfold's
CHAPTER V. Steel Pens and Goose Quills
CHAPTER VI. Downstairs in the Dark
CHAPTER VII. Cloud-capped Towers and Gorgeous Palaces
CHAPTER VIII. Immortelles
CHAPTER IX. The Bow-windowed House
CHAPTER X. A Sn BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!
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