PREFACE.

JUST one or two words to the reader of this little story will be all the Preface necessary.

The character of "Eliza Davies" is taken from life, and, should it be thought to be overdrawn, we beg to affirm that the "truth was stranger than the fiction."

In "John Wynter" the writer has attempted to delineate the character of one to whom she owes all that may be of any worth in herself, but whose beautiful inner life she finds it impossible to describe so as to give an adequate idea of its value-a blending of earnestness, purity,

and love, combined with a mind of no ordinary

calibre, and a Christian humility which was marked by even ordinary acquaintances.

That those who kindly read these pages during a leisure hour may derive benefit as well as pleasure from them, is the earnest wish of

Their humble servant,

THE AUTHOR.