our next! But I need scarcely say that all this is deadly private--I
expect it all to come out, not without explosion; only it must not be
through me or you. We had a visit yesterday from a person by the name of
Count Nerli, who is said to be a good painter. Altogether the
aristocracy clusters thick about us. In which radiant light, as the mail
must now be really put up, I leave myself until next month,--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY

Following up the last letter, Stevenson here tells the story of the
visit paid to Apia by the Countess of Jersey, who had come over from
Sydney with her brother Captain Leigh and her young daughter Lady
Margaret Villiers. "A warm friendship," writes Lady Jersey, "was the
immediate result; we constantly met, either in the hospitable abode
of our host Mr. Bazett Haggard, or in Mr. Stevenson's delightful
mountain home, and passed many happy hours in riding, walking, and
conversation." The previous letter has shown how it was arranged that
the party should pay a visit of curiosity to the "rebel king," or
more properly the rival claimant to the kingly power, Mataafa, in his
camp at Malie, and how Stevenson at once treated the adventure as a
chapter out of a Waverley novel. "The wife of the new Governor of New
South Wales," writes Lady Jersey on her part, "could not pay such a
visit in her own name, so Mr. Stevenson adopted me as his cousin,
'Amelia Balfour.' This transparent disguise was congenial to his
romantic instincts, and he writes concerning the arrangements made
for the expedition, carefully dating his letter 'Aug. 14, 1745.'"

_August 14, 1745._

To MISS AMELIA BALFOUR--MY DEAR COUSIN,--We are going an expedition to
leeward on Tuesday morning. If a lady were perhaps to be encountered on
horseback--say, towards the Gasi-gasi river--about six A.M., I think we
should have an episode somewhat after the style of the '45. What a
misfortune, my dear cousin, that you should have arrived while your
cousin Graham was occupying my only guest-chamber--for Osterley Park is
not so large in Samoa as it was at home--but happily our friend Haggard
has found a corner for you!

The King over the Water--the Gasi-gasi water--will be pleased to see the
clan of Balfour mustering so thick around his standard.

I have (one serious word) been so lucky as to get a really secret
interpreter, so all is for the best in ou