Refaces,' says Francis Bacon, are great P wastes of time, and, though they seem to proceed of modesty, they are bravery.' I hope I may be forgiven for the piece of bravery which introduces you to Mrs. Asenath Nicholson, a lost lady of old years. I found her forlorn and for gotten in a side street of a country library, with great folk, and folk ephemerally great, and un remembered lesser folk for neighbours. A library is like a hamlet or a town. In stately houses may dwell the quite unimportant; in unnoticed corners, behind modest exteriors, some who have tales to tell, and a hospitality of wisdom for callers. But for many a long year Mrs. Nicholson has remained within the faded boards of her binding unvisited, unnoticed, unknown. Let me begin in a fashion popular in the early Victorian age during which, for a few brief years, she ?ourished and (in a small way, but prophetic) was notable.