To those who are fortunate enough to know Miss Alexander's pen and pencil pictures of Italian peasant life the very name of Francesca, over which her early work was published, carries with it an aroma as of those humbler graces of her adopted people,—their sunny charity, their native sense of the beautiful, their childlike faith,—which touch the heart more intimately than all their great achievements in History and in Art. For those, however, to whom are yet unknown her faithful transcripts in picture and story from the lives of the people she loves, a word of introduction has been asked; and it was perhaps thought that the task might properly be entrusted to one who had heard The Hidden Servants and many another of these poems from the lips of Francesca herself.

To those who are fortunate enough to know Miss Alexander's pen and pencil pictures of Italian peasant life the very name of Francesca, over which her early work was published, carries with it an aroma as of those humbler graces of her adopted people,—their sunny charity, their native sense of the beautiful, their childlike faith,—which touch the heart more intimately than all their great achievements in History and in Art. For those, however, to whom are yet unknown her faithful transcripts in picture and story from the lives of the people she loves, a word of introduction has been asked; and it was perhaps thought that the task might properly be entrusted to one who had heard 

 and many another of these poems from the lips of Francesca herself.

Yet, rightly considered, could any experience have better served to banish from the mind such irrelevant intruders as facts,—those literal facts and data at least which the uninitiated might be so mistaken as to desire, but which none who knew Francesca's work could regard as of the slightest consequence?

Yet, rightly considered, could any experience have better served to banish from the mind such irrelevant intruders as facts,—those literal facts and data at least which the uninitiated might be so mistaken as to desire, but which none who knew Francesca's work could regard as of the slightest consequence?

Imagine a quiet, green-latticed room in Venice overlooking the Grand Canal whose waters keep time in gently audible lappings to the lilt of the verse,—that lilt that is apparent even in the printed line, but which only a voice trained to Italian cadences can perfectly give. Imagine that voice half chanting, half reciting, these old, old legends, and with an absolute sincerity of conviction which 

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