sh
mistress flitted about among them like a bird, alert, active,
bright-eyed, straight as an arrow, and as springy of step as a girl of
sixteen, although even then she was past her first youth.

As to flowers, it seemed to me that they made no particular appeal to
Mr. Stevenson except for their scent, in which he was very like the
rest of his sex the world over. He cared rather for nature's larger
effects--a noble cloud in the sky, the thunder of the surf on the
beach, or the fresh resinous smell of the pine forest.

To this house he came often of an afternoon to read the results of his
morning's work to the assembled family. While we sat in a circle,
listening in appreciative silence, he nervously paced the room,
reading aloud in his full sonorous voice--a voice that always seemed
remarkable in so frail a man--his face flushed and his manner
embarrassed, for, far from being overconfident about his work, he
always seemed to feel a sort of shy anxiety lest it should not be up
to the mark. He invariably gave respectful attention and careful
consideration to the criticism of the humblest of his hearers, but in
the end clung with Scotch pertinacity to his own opinion if he was
sure of its justice. In this way we heard _The Pavilion on the Links_,
which he wrote at Monterey, and read to us chapter by chapter as they
came from his pen. While there he also began another story which was
to have been called _Arizona Breckinridge_, or _A Vendetta in the
West_. This story, with its rather lurid title, was to have been based
upon some of his impressions of western America, but his heart could
not have been in it, for it was never finished. The name of Arizona
came out of his intense delight in the "songful, tuneful" nomenclature
of the United States, in which terms he refers to it in _Across the
Plains_. The name Susquehanna was a special joy to him, and he took
pleasure in rolling it on his tongue, adding to its music with the
rich tones of his voice, as he repeated it: "Susquehanna! Oh,
beautiful!" While on the train passing through Pennsylvania he wrote
some verses in a letter to Sidney Colvin about the beautiful river
with the "tuneful" name, of which one stanza runs thus:

"I think, I hope, I dream no more
The dreams of otherwhere;
The cherished thoughts of yore;
I have been changed from what I was before;
And drunk too deep perchance the lotus of the air
Beside the Susquehanna and along