essed to scorn even while he entered with a zeal that
finally satisfied his father into the performance of it, that always
ended an informal evening at 17 Heriot Row.

Music, too, was a pleasant feature of those little parties, and one
still recalls, especially, the songs and the lovely voice of a favourite
niece of Mrs Stevenson, whose early death made the first break in the
home at 'The Turret,' too soon to be followed by the passing away of all
save one of that happy household. Even now, after the lapse of so many
years, one seems to see Mr Thomas Stevenson leaning eagerly forward as
she sang such sweet old songs as 'My Mother bids me bind my Hair,' and
'She wore a wreath of Roses,' or Robert Louis applauding his favourites,
'I shot an Arrow into the Air,' and 'The Sea hath its Pearls.'

On one occasion one of these merry parties was enlivened by the presence
of some young Japanese engineer students, who were on tour in Edinburgh,
and who had brought introductions to the distinguished engineer, who
made them very cordially welcome. It was not then very common to meet
Japanese, and these quiet dignified young men, in their gracefully
flowing black garments, interested the Stevenson family and their
youthful guests greatly.

CHAPTER VI

HIS CHOICE OF A LITERARY LIFE AND HIS EARLIER BOOKS

'A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza when he should engross.'
--POPE'S _Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot_.

His son's refusal to become a civil engineer, and to take his natural
position in the family business, was undoubtedly a great trial to a man
of Mr Thomas Stevenson's character and professional traditions. That
business had in it not only wealth, honour, and success, but, to every
Stevenson, the glamour of romance, the fascination of adventure, and to
the father his firm's history appealed strongly. Therefore the blow that
fell upon him during that memorable walk, when his son at last found
courage to confess to him that he could not persevere in the traditional
path which he was expected to tread, must have been a crushing one, and
it said much for the strength of his fatherly affection that he received
it as he did. It was a painful decision for the son to make, and an
equally painful one for the parents to hear.

Mrs Thomas Stevenson as well as her husband felt it a keen
disappointment that her son could not walk in his father's footsteps. To
them, as to