Transcribed from the 1899 Deighton Bell & Co. edition byDavid Price.

RONALD AND I

OR

Studies from Life

BY

ALFRED PRETOR

CAMBRIDGE

DEIGHTON BELL & CO.

LONDON GEORGE BELL & SONS

1899

p. iiCAMBRIDGE
PRINTED BY JONATHAN PALMER
ALEXANDRA STREET

p.iiiPREFACE

Several of the following sketches have appeared already in theCambridge Review and the Cantab.  Perhaps thefriends who welcomed them then may welcome them now, on theirreappearance in another and more permanent form.

The story of “Our Rector” has been received inepiscopal quarters with polite incredulity.  It may be thatepiscopal supervision was less far-reaching in those days thannow.  At any rate, the things I have narrated, and thingsstranger still, did occur in our village, and in allessential details, including the postprandial cigar, the story of“Our Rector” is a literal “study fromlife.”

I would forget, if I could, that the “Cruel, CrawlingFoam” is also a record of fact.

A. P.

Cambridge,

May, 1899.

p. vTo Mrs. Thomas Hardy
who suggested and
encouraged the writing
of these tales

p.viiCONTENTS