ly pleased by your letter in many ways. Of
course, I was glad to hear from you; you know, you and I have so many
old stories between us, that even if there was nothing else, even if
there was not a very sincere respect and affection, we should always be
glad to pass a nod. I say, "even if there was not." But you know right
well there is. Do not suppose that I shall ever forget those long,
bitter nights, when I coughed and coughed and was so unhappy, and you
were so patient and loving with a poor, sick child. Indeed, Cummy, I
wish I might become a man worth talking of, if it were only that you
should not have thrown away your pains.

Happily, it is not the result of our acts that makes them brave and
noble, but the acts themselves and the unselfish love that moved us to
do them. "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these."
My dear old nurse, and you know there is nothing a man can say nearer
his heart except his mother or his wife--my dear old nurse, God will
make good to you all the good that you have done, and mercifully forgive
you all the evil. And next time when the spring comes round, and
everything is beginning once again, if you should happen to think that
you might have had a child of your own, and that it was hard you should
have spent so many years taking care of some one else's prodigal, just
you think this--you have been for a great deal in my life; you have made
much that there is in me, just as surely as if you had conceived me; and
there are sons who are more ungrateful to their own mothers than I am to
you. For I am not ungrateful, my dear Cummy, and it is with a very
sincere emotion that I write myself your little boy,

LOUIS.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

After a winter of troubled health, Stevenson had gone to Dunblane for
a change in early spring; and thence writes to his college companion
and lifelong friend, Mr. Charles Baxter:--

_Dunblane, Friday, 5th March 1872._

MY DEAR BAXTER,--By the date you may perhaps understand the purport of
my letter without any words wasted about the matter. I cannot walk with
you to-morrow, and you must not expect me. I came yesterday afternoon to
Bridge of Allan, and have been very happy ever since, as every place is
sanctified by the eighth sense, Memory. I walked up here this morning
(three miles, _tu-dieu!_ a good stretch for me), and passed one of my
favourite places in the world, and one that I very much affect in spirit