'One evening late in Sep: Mr. Hose sat in his armchair reading a news paper. His wife sat in an other looking at the "Strand" Magerzine. Mr. Hose sudonly looked up at his wife; "Elizabeth" he said "one thing I have been wishing for, ever scince we were married is a baby, would you not like to have one looking at her seariously "Yes indeed I should" ansed his delicat wife with a sigh.' From 'The Jealous Governes'

The publication of The Young Visiters, written when she was nine, made Daisy Ashford famous, but it is not so well known that between the ages of seven and fifteen she also wrote a number of splendid short stories. Like the longer work, they deal with love and marriage and the social foibles of the adult world, and they are written with the same charm and mordant perception. Here are two of the most attractive, together with 'The Jealous Governes', written at the same period by her sister Angela, from which it is plain that Daisy was not the only member of the Ashford family with a keen eye and a sharp pencil.

Ralph Steadman's drawings catch the spirit of the stories and re-create their period with uncanny aptness. Humphrey Carpenter, himself an author of children's books (in the ordinary sense), and coeditor of the forthcoming Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, has written an introduction specially for this Oxford Paperbacks edition, in which he places the Ashfords' tales in the context of their own romantic family story.