has another hobby however--his garden, round which it is his highest
pleasure to lead the unwilling guest. Whenever he is not in the kitchen,
he is hanging round loose, seeking whom he may show his garden to. Much
of my time is passed in studiously avoiding him, and I have brought the
art to a very extreme pitch of perfection. The fox, often hunted,
becomes wary.--Ever your affectionate son,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MRS. SITWELL

_[Menton], Tuesday, 13th January 1874._

... I lost a Philipine to little Mary Johnstone last night; so to-day I
sent her a rubbishing doll's toilet, and a little note with it, with
some verses telling how happy children made every one near them happy
also, and advising her to keep the lines, and some day, when she was
"grown a stately demoiselle," it would make her "glad to know she gave
pleasure long ago," all in a very lame fashion, with just a note of
prose at the end, telling her to mind her doll and the dog, and not
trouble her little head just now to understand the bad verses; for some
time when she was ill, as I am now, they would be plain to her and make
her happy. She has just been here to thank me, and has left me very
happy. Children are certainly too good to be true.

Yesterday I walked too far, and spent all the afternoon on the outside
of my bed; went finally to rest at nine, and slept nearly twelve hours
on the stretch. Bennet (the doctor), when told of it this morning,
augured well for my recovery; he said youth must be putting in strong;
of course I ought not to have slept at all. As it was, I dreamed
_horridly_; but not my usual dreams of social miseries and
misunderstandings and all sorts of crucifixions of the spirit; but of
good, cheery, physical things--of long successions of vaulted, dimly lit
cellars full of black water, in which I went swimming among toads and
unutterable, cold, blind fishes. Now and then these cellars opened up
into sort of domed music-hall places, where one could land for a little
on the slope of the orchestra, but a sort of horror prevented one from
staying long, and made one plunge back again into the dead waters. Then
my dream changed, and I was a sort of Siamese pirate, on a very high
deck with several others. The ship was almost captured, and we were
fighting desperately. The hideous engines we used and the perfectly
incredible carnage that we effected by means of them kept me cheery, as
you may imagine; especially a