m that Louis
Stevenson wrote the poem called "Who Comes To-Night?" Speaking of
their first meeting, Mrs. Stevenson wrote to her mother-in-law: "We
have had a very pleasant visitor. One evening a card was handed in
with 'Henry James' upon it. He spent that evening, asked to come again
the next night, arriving almost before we had got done with dinner,
and staying as late as he thought he might, and asking to come the
next evening, which is to-night. I call that very flattering. I had
always been told that he was the type of an Englishman, but, except
that he looks like the Prince of Wales, I call him the type of an
American. He is gentle, amiable, and soothing."

A wedding anniversary came around, and it was resolved to celebrate it
by a dinner. Henry James was the only guest, and he took a naive
delight in the American dishes which his hostess had prepared to
remind him of his native land. She writes: "Our dinner was most
successful, our guest continually asking for double helpings and
breaking out into heartfelt praises of the food. It was a sort of
lady's and literary man's dinner; everything was just as good as could
be, and under each napkin was a paper with verses for each person
written by Louis."

Long afterwards, when Mr. James was in America for his first visit in
many years, he went to see Mrs. Stevenson in her San Francisco house.
He had come up from the southern part of the State, and was so
enchanted with the sights along the way--the flowery hill-slopes and
green ferny canyons--that for the first time he was almost persuaded
to abandon his adopted home and come to live among the orange-groves
of California. "When I come to dinner," said he, "please have a large
dish of California oranges on the table if you have nothing else."
Despite a certain stiffness of manner and speech, he was a man of
kindly heart and simple, unworldly nature. After the first ice was
broken, the most unintellectual person might prattle away to him at
ease, for his sympathies were of the broadest. Both Mr. and Mrs.
Stevenson had a deep affection for him, and "no matter who else was
there, the evenings seemed empty without him."

In the meantime Mr. Stevenson's health went but badly, and his wife
gave up practically all her time and strength to his care.

In May, 1887, the elder Stevenson died, breaking the last tie that
held them to England, and three months later Louis Stevenson, with his
mother, wife, and stepson, set sail for