ndian Ocean, and the South Seas.

In the meantime much work was accomplished, the most important being a
series of twelve articles written by Mr. Stevenson for _Scribner's
Magazine_, including some of his best-known essays--_The Lantern
Bearers_, _A Chapter on Dreams_, etc. In the short hours of daylight
and the long, dark evenings he worked with his stepson on the novel
called _The Wrong Box_. It was here, too, that the story of the two
brothers, _The Master of Ballantrae_, was thought out, and _The Black
Arrow_, a book which failed to meet with Mrs. Stevenson's approval,
was revised. In the dedication to this last he says:

"No one but myself knows what I have suffered, nor what my books have
gained, by your unsleeping watchfulness and admirable pertinacity. And
now here is a volume that goes into the world and lacks your
_imprimatur_; a strange thing in our joint lives; and the reason of it
stranger still! I have watched with interest, with pain, and at length
with amusement, your unavailing attempts to peruse _The Black Arrow_;
I think I should lack humor indeed if I let the occasion slip and did
not place your name in the fly-leaf of the only book of mine that you
have never read--and never will read."

By the time spring had melted the deep snow around their mountain home
they had come to the definite decision to undertake the cruise in the
event that a suitable vessel could be secured for the purpose. Leaving
the other members of the family about to start for Manasquan in New
Jersey, Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson went to San Francisco, where she
found and chartered the yacht _Casco_, belonging to Doctor Merritt of
Oakland, for a six months' cruise.

While in California she came to visit me at Monterey, where years
before we had all been so happy together. During the week she spent
there we did the things that she liked best--spending long delightful
days gathering shells on the beach at Point Cypress, where the great
seas roared in from across the wide Pacific and broke thunderously at
our feet. When noon came, bringing us appetites sharpened by the
sparkling air, we built a fire under the old twisted trees and
barbecued the meat we had brought with us. She seemed to be welling
over with happiness--partly because of her great pride and joy in her
husband's success, and partly because, after years spent in Alpine
snows, Scotch mists, London fogs, and fierce Adirondack cold, she had
come again into the sunlight o