Wasn't it delightful about the article in the _Century_?[23] The
person was evidently writing in such an ecstasy of joy at having found
out Louis. I am so pleased that it was in the _Century_, for every
friend and relation I have in the world will read it. I suppose you
are even prouder of Louis than I am, for he is only mine accidentally,
and he is yours by birth and blood. Two or three times last night I
woke up just from pure pleasure to think of all the people I know
reading about Louis.... He is incredibly better, and I suppose will
just have to stay in Marseilles until I get done with things, for
nothing will keep him away from me more than a week. It is so
surprising, for I had never thought of Louis as a real domestic man,
but now I find that all he wanted was a house of his own. Just the
little time that we have been here has sufficed for him to form a
quite passionate attachment for everything connected with the place,
and it was like pulling up roots to get him away. I am quite
bewildered with all the letters I have to write and all the things I
have to do. For the present I think we shall have to cling to the
little circle of country around Nice, so when you come it must be
somewhere there."

[Footnote 23: An editorial review of _New Arabian
Nights_ in the _Century Magazine_ of February, 1883.]

After some search they finally decided upon Hyeres, and by the latter
part of March had once more hopefully set up their household goods in
a little cottage, the Chalet la Solitude, which clung to a low cliff
almost at the entrance of the town. This house had been a model Swiss
chalet at the Paris Exposition of 1878, and had been removed and again
erected at Hyeres, where, amid its French neighbours, it was an
incongruous and alien object. Mrs. Stevenson writes of it: "It is the
smallest doll house I ever saw, but has everything in it to make it
comfortable, and the garden is magnificent. The wild flowers are
lovely, and the walks, all so close at hand, most enchanting."

In the garden grew old grey olive-trees, and in them nightingales
nested and sang. On the rocky crags above stood the ruins of an
ancient Saracen castle, and before them lay the sea--indeed a "most
sweet corner of the universe." Not far away were the rose farms of
Toulon, of which Mrs. Stevenson writes:

"I shall never forget the day my husband and I drove through lanes of
roses from which the attar of commerce is mad