friend, Mrs. Virgil Williams, to be told--for print--the true story of
the Stevenson marriage. I was unable to go to meet Mrs. Williams at the
time appointed, but a day or two later she came by Miss Guiney's
introduction to an editorial desk where I had been for eight years in the
office of the Boston _Evening Transcript_, and gave me certain facts, from
which the article below was written. It appeared in _The Transcript_, May
18, 1898.

MINNA CAROLINE SMITH.

MRS. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, who has been ill in New York, has recovered
and has gone to England for an indefinite stay. It is, however, her
purpose to make her home again ultimately in San Francisco. Her presence
in England is necessary, as Mr. Sidney Colvin is now engaged in writing
the "Life of Stevenson," and depends upon Mrs. Stevenson for aid in
compilation, and in deciding what shall be said and what shall be left
out. A great deal has been said about the Stevensons which might much
better have been left unsaid, for the simple reason that it is not true.
Like the old story of Phillips Brooks and the boy with the "Episcopalian
Kittens," some of the truthless tales are harmless. Others are less
innocuous than the imaginative yarns which are always likely to be current
about any bright personality, any "shining mark," like Stevenson and his
accomplished wife.

Now that he is dead, and Mrs. Stevenson has gone to his native Britain, it
is well to deny authoritatively the absurd story which has often been
revived during the past twenty years that Mrs. Stevenson's first husband,
Mr. Osbourne, gave her away in marriage on the day of her wedding to
Robert Louis Stevenson, and that Stevenson afterwards fraternized with his
predecessor. As a matter of fact, Stevenson never in his life even saw the
father of Lloyd Osbourne, who was about fourteen years of age at the time
of his mother's marriage to the famous Scot. The father of Stevenson, an
old-time Presbyterian gentlemen, made Lloyd Osbourne his heir, thus wholly
welcoming his beloved daughter-in-law in the family, where she and her
children have found happiness and where they gave so much. It is advisedly
said that the elder Stevenson made Lloyd Osbourne his heir, his property
to be that of his son's step-child after the death of his son and that
son's wife. It is well known that Stevenson's mother was with his family
in Samoa, and this dignified and conservative lady also followe