LONDON:

1. MOJEF, TRINTER, 4A, EXETER KEPT,

STRAND, W.C.

PREFACE.

For on this occasion

We offer this eighth volume of the present series of the "Family Friend" to all our kind readers and subscribers with more confidence, more hope, and more pleasure than hitherto, we have not only to look back at what has been done to maintain the usefulness and genial character of our "Friend," but we have also the additional pleasure of looking forward to what is now about to be done to place the Magazine, in every possible respect, on a level with the best publications of the day.

All who have read our pages will confess the talent and industry of our many kind contributors, and most heartily do we tender our thanks for all the assistance we have received in the production of this Christmas volume.

May we hope that our friends will echo our "Excelsior," and support us in our onward march of progress?

We wish to approach every reader and every subscriber as a "Friend" in the truest sense of the word. We wish to take and give advice, and in our forthcoming campaign we desire it to be distinctly understood that every communication shall receive rcspectful attention. For sixteen years the "Family Friend" has sailed through sunshine and through tempest on the great sea of literature; on the 1st of January, 1866, she will appear with new sails and with a richer freight. May God speed her, and may her new freight be the seed which ultimately, falling on good ground, shall bring forth fruit in abundance!