rming invalid lady, wife of the pawnbroker. It seemed that
they were people who had fallen from a high estate, and, through
devotion to his wife, who was helplessly confined to her chair, he had
for years kept the secret of his occupation from her, and she had
lived in her garden like a fair flower, uncontaminated by the slums of
Paris. In this shop Mrs. Stevenson bought four rich mahogany posts,
part of an antique bedstead, which she used many years afterwards as
pillars in the drawing-room of her San Francisco house.

But alas, their pleasant jaunting soon came to an end, for Louis had a
relapse which brought desperate disappointment to them both, and of
which she writes to his mother: "I felt compelled to tell him that he
must be prepared for whatever may happen. Naturally the poor boy
yearned for his mother. I think it must be very sweet to you to have
this grown-up man of thirty still clinging to you with his child
love."

The setback dashed their spirits so severely that his conscientious
Scotch parents thought it their duty to lecture them on the sin of
ingratitude for the blessings that were still theirs. In great
contrition their daughter-in-law writes:

"I was just about to write when a double letter from you and Mr. Tommy
came to hand. When I read what Mr. Tommy said about gratitude I felt
more conscience-stricken than words can express. Neither Louis nor I
have any right to feel even annoyed about anything. Certainly God has
been good. I have seen others, apparently no more ill than Louis was
at one time, laid in their graves, and I see others, quite as ill,
struggling wearily for their daily bread. We see misery and
wretchedness on every hand, and here we sit, none of it touching us,
Louis feeling better, and both of us complaining shamefully because in
the smallest things the world does not go round smoothly enough for
us.... I fancy we shall start for Scotland Tuesday, but will travel
slowly on account of Louis's fatigue and nervous exhaustion from the
shaking of the train."

Edinburgh was reached on May 31, 1881, and a few days later,
accompanied by his mother, they went to Pitlochry, where they spent
two months in Kinnaird Cottage, on the banks of a lovely river. This
was a beautiful but inclement region, and cold winds and rain
prevailed almost constantly. The two ladies never ventured out without
umbrellas, and even then usually returned in a drenched condition.
Imprisoned by the weather, the sic