a certain doctor who was such an
inveterate optimist that he could have given lessons even to Louis
Stevenson himself. She says of him: "This doctor has bought a piece of
land here upon which he expects to build a house and settle down when
he retires from practice. How old do you suppose he will be when he
stops work and settles down to enjoy life? Only ninety-one, and
subject to hemorrhages and other things! It seems to be the received
opinion that when one passes the age of sixty-three years life takes a
new start and one may live to almost any age. As to Louis, I verily
believe he is going to be like the old doctor, only a little better
looking, I hope."

Notwithstanding the cramped quarters in the little chalet their
solitude was broken now and then by a visitor. Thither went at various
times "Bob" Stevenson, Sir Sidney Colvin, Mr. Charles Baxter, Mr. W.
E. Henley, and Miss Ferrier. The pleasurable excitement of this
society, to which he had been so long a stranger, raised Mr.
Stevenson's spirits to such an extent that he rashly proposed an
expedition to Nice, where he took cold, developed pneumonia, was
critically ill for weeks, and returned to Hyeres still in a very low
condition. This was one of the most harrowing periods of Mrs.
Stevenson's life, and she tells of its distresses in a letter written
to her mother-in-law in January, 1884:

"If I write like a mad creature do not be surprised, for I have had a
period of awful wretchedness. Louis fell ill, and when the doctor
came he beckoned to me to follow him, and then told me Louis was dying
and could not be kept alive until you could get here. That was
yesterday. I watched every breath he drew all night in what sickening
apprehension you may guess. To-day another doctor, Dr. Drummond, was
called in, and says that Louis may well live to be seventy, only he
must not travel about. He is steadily better and is reading a
newspaper in bed at this moment. I, who have not slept a wink for two
nights, am pretending to be the gayest of the gay, but in reality I am
a total wreck, although I am almost off my head with relief and joy."

As soon as the patient had sufficiently recovered they returned to
Hyeres, but there new troubles awaited them. His eyes became so
severely affected by a contagious ophthalmia then prevailing in the
neighbourhood that he had to give up using them for several weeks,
sciatic rheumatism confined him to bed, and his right arm was bound to
his