[Footnote 8: An American artist.]

Again she writes:

"Yesterday I canoed to Nemours in Louis Stevenson's _Rob Roy_. We
generally congregate down in the garden by the big tree after dinner.
Mama swings in the hammock, looking as pretty as possible, and we all
form a group around her on the grass, Louis and Bob Stevenson babbling
about boats, while Simpson, seated near by, fans himself with a large
white fan."

[Illustration: Fanny Osbourne at about the time of her first meeting
with Robert Louis Stevenson.]

The little party in the old inn, "entirely surrounded by peasants," as
Bob Stevenson said, devised all sorts of sports, for which the river
afforded many opportunities. There was a huge old boat, a double
canoe, lying at the water's edge; this they put on rollers, and after
the entire party had climbed into it, persuaded the passing peasants
to come and push it off the bank, like a sort of "shoot the chutes."
Another game was to divide the canoes into bands, each under a
captain, and engage in a contest, each side trying to tip over the
enemy canoes. In all this hilarious fun Louis Stevenson was the
leader.

In the old hall they had great times, with dances, now and then a
performance by strolling players, and once a masquerade given by the
guests of the inn themselves, in which they dressed as gods and
goddesses in sheets and wreaths. Once when a couple of wandering
singers arrived after a disappointing season, the artists contributed
a purse and invited them to spend a week and rest. These people told
Stevenson the story he made into _Providence and the Guitar_, and the
money which he received for it he sent to them afterwards to help pay
for the education of their little girl in Paris.

But of all that went on at Grez the talks are remembered as the best,
for, notwithstanding their merry fooling in their idle hours, there
were brilliant minds among the company, and the conversation sparkled
with rare conceits.

Three summers the Osbournes returned to spend at Grez, lingering on
the last time until the snow came. A short visit was made to Barbizon,
too, and once when there the whole party had their silhouettes drawn
on the walls of the dining-room. This was done by placing a lamp so
that it threw a shadow of the face in profile on the wall, then
outlining the shadow and filling it in with black. Louis Stevenson
wrote verses to them all. The place was repainted the next spring,
which was to be regrett