ether I have wandered. Forgive me, I feel as if I
had relieved myself; so perhaps it may not be unpleasant for you
either.--Believe me, ever your faithful friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MRS. SITWELL,

_Swanston, Sunday (June 1874)._

DEAR FRIEND,--I fear to have added something to your troubles by telling
you of the grief in which I find myself; but one cannot always come to
meet a friend smiling, although we should try for the best cheer
possible. All to-day I have been very weary, resting myself after the
trouble and fatigue of yesterday. The day was warm enough, but it blew a
whole gale of wind; and the noise and the purposeless rude violence of
it somehow irritated and depressed me. There was good news however,
though the anxiety must still be long. O peace, peace, whither are you
fled and where have you carried my old quiet humour? I am so bitter and
disquiet and speak even spitefully to people. And somehow, though I
promise myself amendment, day after day finds me equally rough and sour
to those about me. But this would pass with good health and good
weather; and at bottom I am not unhappy; the soil is still good although
it bears thorns; and the time will come again for flowers.

_Wednesday._--I got your letter this morning and have to thank you so
much for it. Bob is much better; and I do hope out of danger. To-day has
been more glorious than I can tell you. It has been the first day of
blue sky that we have had; and it was happiness for a week to see the
clear bright outline of the hills and the glory of sunlit foliage and
the darkness of green shadows, and the big white clouds that went
voyaging overhead deliberately. My two cousins from Portobello were
here; and they and I and Maggie ended the afternoon by lying half an
hour together on a shawl. The big cloud had all been carded out into a
thin luminous white gauze, miles away; and miles away too seemed the
little black birds that passed between this and us as we lay with faces
upturned. The similarity of what we saw struck in us a curious
similarity of mood; and in consequence of the small size of the shawl,
we all lay so close that we half pretended, half felt, we had lost our
individualities and had become merged and mixed up in a quadruple
existence. We had the shadow of an umbrella over ourselves, and when any
one reached out a brown hand into the golden sunlight overhead we all
feigned that we did not know whose hand it was,