, and a travelling
salesman named Campbell to see the dancing. Six or eight pretty girls
were turned up by our 'poor old family' to make the _kava_, and,
though our own boys had been given a holiday, we had attendants in
scores. I had had a turkey roasted and corned beef boiled, so that
with such things laid out on the sideboard I could give my guests a
sort of picnic meal instead of dinner. The Tongans marched up--about
fifty of them--led by their _taupo_ dressed in a fine mat and dancing
as she came. She was followed by the girls of the village carrying the
usual presents on poles, and then came the fighting men with blackened
faces and wearing the dress used in the war dances. They were all tall
powerful young men, and looked very fierce and magnificent. They
manoeuvred while on the lawn and then we had the usual business of
_kava_ and orations. The dancing, for which they used an ancient war
drum, took place in the hall, where the Chief Justice and I sat, as
you might say, on thrones in front of the table, with the other
spectators sitting on the floor around us. The dancing was wild and
really splendid. When they left, just as dusk was falling, we
presented them with a full-grown pig and two boxes of biscuit. Our
boys thought Louis's grandfather[67] should be shown some honor for
the occasion, so they decorated his bust with a wreath cocked over one
eye and a big red flower over one ear. I never saw anything more
incongruous; it was enough to make him turn over in his grave."

[Footnote 67: Robert Stevenson, lighthouse engineer.]

Mrs. Stevenson's health improved after her return to Samoa, and she
and her daughter spent quiet, pleasant months together working in the
garden, walking in the forest, playing chess, reading, and sewing, and
were both looking forward to the return of Mr. Osbourne when the news
arrived of the sudden death in Edinburgh of Mrs. Thomas Stevenson. It
was a sad shock to her daughter-in-law, who had grown to love Louis's
mother dearly, and all the more distressing as she was summoned to go
at once to Scotland to help settle the estate. It now became clear
that the island home, made dear by a thousand tender associations,
would have to be abandoned. Had Mrs. Stevenson been able to follow out
her own desires at that time, she would have preferred to spend the
remainder of her days there, but her son and daughter were drawn away
perforce by the claims of their own families--the educ