PREFACE.
“Bear and Forbear” is the sixth and last of the Lake Shore Series, and was one of the serials which appeared in Oliver Optic’s Magazine. The story itself is complete, and independent of its predecessors, though the characters that have been prominent in the other volumes of the series are again presented, to be finally dealt with according to their several deserts. The writer has endeavored to show that fidelity to duty prospers even in this world, and that evil doing brings pain and misery; and if he has awarded “poetical justice” to each, it will only make the contrast the more evident.
The author has endeavored to make a proper use of the Christian precept which forms the principal title; and he trusts that his readers, both young and old, will be able to deduce the moral from the story, and, profiting by it, be enabled to avoid such disagreeable ruptures as that which threatened the peace of the two communities in the story, but which the “two bears” happily prevented.
In closing this series, the author desires once more to thank his juvenile and his adult friends for the kind consideration they have always extended to him, and for the increasing favor bestowed upon his efforts to please and to instruct.
Harrison Square, Boston.
June 1, 1870.