The fifth volume of the Woodville stories contains the experience of Fanny Grant, who from a very naughty girl became a very good one, by the influence of a pure and beautiful example, exhibited to the erring child in the hour of her greatest wandering from the path of rectitude. The story is not an illustration of the "pleasures of hope;" but an attempt to show the young reader that what we most desire, in moral and spiritual, as well as worldly things, we labor the hardest to obtain—a truism adopted by the heroine in the form of the principal title of the volume, Hope and Have.

The terrible Indian massacre which occurred in Minnesota, in 1862, is the foundation of the latter half of the story; and the incidents, so far as they have been used, were drawn from authentic sources. Fanny Grant's experience is tame compared with that of hundreds who suffered by this deplorable event; and her adventures, in company with Ethan French, are far less romantic than many which are sufficiently attested by the principal actors in them.

Once more, and with increased pleasure, the author tenders to his juvenile friends his thanks for their continued kindness to him and his books; and he hopes his present offering will both please and benefit them.