Chapter I: Preface

"The Late Miss Hollingford" was published a good many years ago in the pages of _All the Year Round_.

It has never till now been re-published in England, though it has been translated into French under the title of _Une Idée Fantasque_, and issued by the Bleriot Library, with a preface by M. Gounod. It has also appeared in Italian. In the Tauchnitz Collection it is bound in with _No Thoroughfare_, having been chosen by the late Charles Dickens as a pendant for his own story in a volume of that series.

Mr. Dickens was so pleased with this tale, and some others by the same author, then a very young beginner, that he wrote asking her to contribute a serial story of considerable length to his journal.

"The Late Miss Hollingford" (the title of which was chosen by Mr. Dickens himself) comes now asking for a favourable reception from the public, in the name of the great master of English fiction--long passed away from among us.