er mother sitting up in bed laughing, while Louis walked
up and down the room gesticulating and telling her the "true story" of
his affair with Moroccy.

[Footnote 57: Mrs. Strong will be remembered as the
little Isobel Osbourne of the early pages of this book.]

So passed all too swiftly three full years--years crowded with work
and play and many rare experiences--and less darkly shadowed by the
spectre that had stalked beside them ever since their marriage. For
this short space he knew what it was to live like a man, not like a
"pallid weevil in a biscuit," and she, though her vigilance was never
relaxed for a moment, breathed somewhat more freely. The days sped
happily by, until Thanksgiving, November 29, 1894, which was
celebrated with an elaborate dinner at Vailima. Mrs. Stevenson was
anxious to have this a truly American feast, from the turkey to the
last detail, but cranberries were not to be had, so she produced a
satisfactory substitute from a native berry, and under her careful
supervision her native servants succeeded in setting out a dinner that
would have satisfied even an old Plymouth Rock Puritan. At the dinner,
the last entertainment taken part in by Mr. Stevenson, in enumerating
his reasons for thankfulness, he spoke of his wife, who had been all
in all to him when the days were very dark, and rejoiced in their
undiminished affection.

A day or two afterwards she was seized with a presentiment of
impending evil--a formless shadow that seemed to settle down upon her
spirit, and that no argument could relieve. Her mother-in-law writes:
"I must tell you a very strange thing that happened just before his
death. For a day or two Fanny had been telling us that she knew--that
she felt--something dreadful was going to happen to some one we cared
for; as she put it, to one of our friends. On Monday she was very low
and upset about it and dear Lou tried to cheer her. Strangely enough,
both of them had agreed that it could not be to either of _them_ that
the dreadful thing was to happen."

On the afternoon of December 3, 1894, according to their custom he
took his morning's work for her criticism. She quickly perceived that
in this, which neither dreamed was to be the last work of his pen, his
genius had risen to its highest level, and she poured out her praise
in a way that was unusual with her. It was almost with her words of
commendation still ringing in his ears that he passed t