inchoate stage, and writing the continuation to
_Kidnapped_, first intended to bear the name of the hero, David Balfour,
and afterwards changed to _Catriona_. With this he proceeded swimmingly,
completing it between February and September, in a shorter time than any
other of his sustained narratives; and on publication its success was
great. By May he had finished the _Footnote_, and then had a dash at the
first chapters of _The Young Chevalier_, which stand in their truncated
state a piece of work as vivid and telling as he had ever done. Early in
the autumn he struck a still fuller note in the draft of the first
chapters of _Weir of Hermiston_.

During this year the household at Vailima received a new temporary
inmate in the person of Mr. Graham Balfour, a cousin whom Stevenson had
not previously known, but with whom he soon formed the closest and most
confidential friendship of his later life. In the summer and early
autumn he was much taken up both with politics and with hospitalities.
As hereinafter narrated, he made, and was thwarted in, a serious attempt
to effect a reconciliation between the two rival chiefs; and continued
his series of letters to the Times showing up the incompetence, and
worse, of the responsible Treaty officials. In August he took lively
pleasure in a visit paid to the islands by Lady Jersey and some members
of her family from Australia. During the course of their stay he
conducted the visitors to the rebel camp under aliases, as the needs of
the time required, and in a manner that seemed like the realisation of a
chapter of a Waverley novel. A month or two later he became aware, with
more amusement than alarm, of measures for his deportation set on foot
but not carried through by the Treaty officials. For a man of his
temper, the political muddle and mismanagement of which the Samoan
Islands were the scene--and not only these, however much he might lament
them for the sake of the inhabitants, but even the risks he ran of
serious personal consequences from his own action,--added to life at
least as much of zest and excitement as of annoyance.

In October he determined, not without serious financial misgivings and
chiefly in deference to his mother's urgency, to enlarge his house at
Vailima by putting up a new block adjoining and communicating with that
which he had hitherto inhabited. The work was promptly and efficiently
carried out by the German Firm and completed by the end of the year.
Q