Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
GRAVES & YOUNG,
in the Clerk’s Office for the District Court of Massachusetts


Copyright, 1894, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward.

PREFACE.

Having been asked to write a prefaceto the new edition of the Gypsy books, Iam not a little perplexed. I was hardlymore than a girl myself, when I recordedthe history of this young person; and Ifind it hard, at this distance, to photographher as she looks, or ought to look to-day.She does not sit still long enough to be“taken.” I see a lively girl in pretty shortdresses and very long stockings,—quite aTom-boy, if I remember rightly. She paddlesa raft, she climbs a tree, she skatesand tramps and coasts, she is usually verymuddy, and a little torn. There is apt tobe a pin in her gathers; but there is sureto be a laugh in her eyes. Wherever thereis mischief, there is Gypsy. Yet, whereverthere is fun, and health, and hope, and happiness,—andI think, wherever there is truthfulnessand generosity,—there is Gypsy, too.

And now, the publishers tell me thatGypsy is thirty years old, and that girlswho were not so much as born when Iknew the little lady, are her readers andher friends to-day.

Thirty years old? Indeed, it is more thanthat! For is it not thirty years since thepublication of her memoirs? And was she,at that time, possibly sixteen? Forty-sixyears? Incredible! How in the world didGypsy “grow up?” For that was before toboggansand telephones, before bicycles andelectric cars, before bangs and puffedsleeves, before girls studied Greek, and golf-capescame in. Did she go to college? Forthe Annex, and Smith, and Wellesley werenot. Did she have a career? Or take a husband?Did she edit a Quarterly Review, orsing a baby to sleep? Did she write poetry,or make pies? Did she practice medicine,or matrimony? Who knows? Not even theauthor of her being.

Only one thing I do know: Gypsy nevergrew up to be “timid,” or silly, or mean,or lazy; but a sensible woman, true andstrong; asking little help of other people,but giving much; an honor to her braveand loving sex, and a safe comrade to thegirls who kept step with her into middlelife; and I trust that I may bespeak fromtheir daughters and their scholars a kindlywelcome to an old story, told again.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

Newton Centre, Mass.,
April, 1895.

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