after
the marriage, her daughter, upon entering a room, stopped with a
sudden shock, startled by the unaccustomed sound of a light happy
laugh, the first she remembered ever having heard from the lips of her
mother. For the first time she realized what a sad and bitter life
Fanny Osbourne's had been.

Louis's health now being considered strong enough for the journey,
they left their sunny eyrie on the mountainside in July, and on August
7, 1880, sailed from New York for England.

CHAPTER VI

EUROPE AND THE BRITISH ISLES.

When the newly married pair reached Scotland all the fears of the
American bride vanished like mist before the sun, for her husband's
parents instantly took her to their hearts as though she had been
their own choice. In _The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson_ Sir
Sidney Colvin says:

"Of her new family Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, brought thus strangely
and from afar into their midst, made an immediate conquest. To her
husband's especial happiness, there sprang up between her and his
father the closest possible affection and confidence. Parents and
friends, if it is permissible for one of the latter to say as much,
rejoiced to recognize in Stevenson's wife a character as strong, as
interesting, and romantic as his own; an inseparable sharer of all his
thoughts, and staunch companion of all his adventures; the most
open-hearted of friends to all who loved him, the most shrewd and
stimulating critic of his work; and in sickness ... the most devoted
and efficient of nurses."

Mr. Edmund Gosse writes in the _Century Magazine_, 1895:

"He had married in California a charming lady whom we all learned to
regard as the most appropriate and helpful companion that Louis could
possibly have secured."

Concerning her relations with her mother-in-law, another friend, Lady
Balfour, writes:

"It is a testimonial both to her and to Mrs. Thomas Stevenson that
though they were as the poles apart in character, yet each loved and
appreciated the other most fully." How different they were in training
and ideas of life is illustrated by a trivial incident that occurred
when the younger woman was visiting at the home of her husband's
parents in Scotland. Her mother-in-law asked her if she never
"worked." In some surprise she replied that she had indeed worked, and
then found out that the elder lady meant fancy-work. Thereupon the two
went out shopping and bought all the things needful for a piano-cover