The Hidden Servants and Other Very Old Stories

Marianna and her Vision by the Fire. From a drawing by the author
Title page
THE HIDDEN SERVANTS
and OTHER VERY OLD STORIES
Told Over Again By FRANCESCA ALEXANDER
AUTHOR OF THE STORY OF IDA, ROADSIDE SONGS OF TUSCANY, Etc.
LONDON Published by DAVID NUTT at the Sign of the Phoenix, Long Acre 1907
Copyright, 1900, By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
All Rights Reserved
University Press John Wilson and Son Cambridge, U.S.A.
Introduction
To those who are fortunate enough to know Miss Alexander's pen and pencil pictures of Italian peasant life the very name of Francesca, over which her early work was published, carries with it an aroma as of those humbler graces of her adopted people,—their sunny charity, their native sense of the beautiful, their childlike faith,—which touch the heart more intimately than all their great achievements in History and in Art. For those, however, to whom are yet unknown her faithful transcripts in picture and story from the lives of the people she loves, a word of introduction has been asked; and it was perhaps thought that the task might properly be entrusted to one who had heard The Hidden Servants and many another of these poems from the lips of Francesca herself.