This life takes up all my time and
strength. I am truly better; I am allowed to do nothing, never leave
our little platform in the canyon nor do a stroke of work. No one to
see me now would think I was an invalid."

When, in 1883, his mother expressed surprise that such a rough place
should have been chosen for his cure, her daughter-in-law answered:

[Illustration: Fanny Osbourne at the time of her marriage to Robert
Louis Stevenson.]

"You wonder at my allowing Louis to go to such a place. Why, if you
only knew how thankful I was to get there with him! I was told that
nothing else would save his life, and I believe it was true. We could
not afford to go to a 'mountain resort' place, and there was no other
chance. Then, on the other hand, the next day I put in doors and
windows of light frames covered with white cotton, with bits of
leather from the old boots (miners' boots found in the deserted cabin)
for hinges, made seats and beds, and got things to look quite
homelike. We got white and red wine, dried peaches and fruits which we
kept cool in the tunnel and which we enjoyed extremely. Louis says
nothing about the flowers, but the beauty of them was beyond
description, to say nothing of the perfume. At the back door was a
thicket of trees covered with cream-colored and scarlet lilies. I have
never seen the like anywhere in the world."

Again she writes from Calistoga, July 16, 1880, to the yet unknown
mother-in-law:

"As to my dear boy's appearance, he improves every day in the most
wonderful way, so that I fancy by the time you see him you will hardly
know that he has ever been ill at all. I do try to take care of him;
the old doctor insists that my nursing saved him; I cannot quite think
it myself, as I shouldn't have known what to do without the doctor's
advice, but even having it said is a pleasure to me. Taking care of
Louis is, as you must know, very like angling for shy trout; one must
understand when to pay out the line, and exercise the greatest caution
in drawing him in. I am becoming most expert, though it is an anxious
business. I do not believe that any of Louis's friends, outside of his
own family, have ever realized how very low he has been; letters
followed him continually, imploring, almost demanding his immediate
return to England, when the least fatigue, the shortest journey,
might, and probably would, have proved fatal; and, which at the moment
filled my heart with bitterness against them, t