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<h1>The Little Colonel's Chum:</h1>
<h1>Mary Ware</h1>
<h2>By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON</h2>
<h2>Preface</h2>
<p><b>Dear Boys and Girls Who Are Old Friends of the Little Colonel:</b></p>
<p>When I finished the eighth volume of the Little Colonel Stories, The
Maid of Honour, I thought I had reached the end of the series, but such
a flood of letters came pouring in demanding to know what happened next,
that I could not ignore such a plea, and in consequence The Little
Colonel's Knight came riding by.</p>
<p>But even with Lloyd married and "living happily ever after" her friends
were not satisfied. "You skipped" they complained by the hundreds. "You
never told what happened between the time of her engagement and the
wedding, and you never told what happened to Betty and Joyce and Mary
and Phil and all the rest of them. Even if you haven't time for another
book, couldn't you just please write <i>me</i> a little letter and satisfy my
curiosity about each character."</p>
<p>Of course I couldn't begin granting all those requests, and finally I
was persuaded it would be easier to answer your questions with a new
book. So here is Mary Ware, taking up the thread of the story at the
first of the skipped places. The time is September, the same September
that Betty went away to Warwick Hall to teach and Lloyd began to prepare
for her debut in Louisville.</p>
<p>Now this volume covers only one short year, so of course it can not tell
you all you want to know. But if you are disappointed because it does
not take you to the final milestone, remember that had we gone that far
it would have been the end of all our journeying together. And we have
it from our <i>Tusitala</i> himself, that best beloved of travellers, for
whom in a far island of the sea was dug "a Road to last for ever," that
"<i>to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive</i>." A.F.J.</p>
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