the idea that
all labour was derogatory to their dignity. Their loving service touched
Mr Stevenson and all his family very deeply, and this bright memory
gladdened the last weeks of his life, and must be a very pleasant one to
recall for those of the Vailima household who still survive him.

At the celebration of his birthday on 13th November he had received
also a tribute of kindly appreciation from the European and American
residents in Apia. On the occasion of a 'Thanksgiving' feast in that
same November, he made a speech, in which he said he had always liked
_that_ day, for he felt that he had had so much for which to be
thankful. He especially mentioned the pleasure he had in his mother
being with him, and said that to America--where he had married his
wife--he owed the chief blessing of his life.

In spite of his assurances that he was very well, he was exceedingly
thin and wasted in those days, and later Samoan photographs show a
melancholy change in him. On the morning of the 3rd December, however,
he felt particularly well and wrote for several hours. It is very
pleasant to know, from _A Letter to Mr Stevenson's Friends_, sent to the
_Times_ after his stepfather's death by Mr Lloyd Osbourne as an
acknowledgment of the vast amount of sympathy expressed, and so
impossible to be otherwise answered, that he had enjoyed his work on
_Weir of Hermiston_, and felt all the buoyancy of successful effort on
that last morning of his life.

Letters for the mail were due to be written in the afternoon, and he
spent his time penning long and kindly greetings to absent friends.

'At sunset,' Mr Osbourne says, 'he came downstairs, rallied his wife
about the forebodings she could not shake off; talked of a lecturing
tour in America he was eager to make, "as he was so well," and played a
game of cards with her to drive away her melancholy.'

By-and-bye he said that he was hungry, and proposed a little feast, for
which he produced a bottle of old Burgundy, and went to help her to
prepare a salad, talking gaily all the while. As they were on the
verandah, he suddenly cried out, 'What is that?' put his hands to his
head, and asked, 'Do I look strange?' In a moment he had fallen down
beside her.

His wife called for help, and she and his body-servant Sosima carried
him into the great hall, where he had known so much happiness, and
placed him in the old arm-chair which had been his grandfather's.
Medical aid was quickly obtain