city until some
sort of order should be established, even water being unprocurable on
the Hyde Street hill, Mrs. Stevenson decided to take refuge for the
time at Vanumanutagi Ranch near Gilroy. Even there she found a sorry
confusion, for the house chimneys were all wrecked and the stone wall
around the enclosure had been thrown down and scattered. There was
plenty of good water, however, and the possibility of getting
provisions and living after a fashion, so she settled down to stay
there until conditions should improve in the city. It was an eerie
place to stay in, too, for that section lies close to the main
earthquake fault, and the quivering earth was a long time settling
down from its great upheaval. For as long as a year afterwards small
quakes came at frequent intervals, and in the stillness of the night
strange roaring sounds, like the approach of a railroad train, and
sudden exploding noises, like distant cannon shot, came to add their
terrors to the creaking and swaying of the little wooden house.

After some months Mrs. Stevenson went to San Francisco, but she found
the discomfort still so great and the sight of the ruined city so
depressing that she finally yielded to the persuasions of her son and
Mr. Field to accompany them on a trip to Europe. They sailed from New
York in November, 1906, on the French steamer _La Provence_.

After a stay of only three or four days in Paris, they took the train
for the south--an all-day trip. As Mrs. Stevenson had always thought
she would love Avignon, though she had never been there, it was
decided to go there first. In their compartment on the train there was
a French bishop, a Monseigneur Charmiton, and his sister, with whom
they soon fell into conversation. The bishop and his sister seemed
appalled at the idea of anyone wanting to spend a winter in Avignon.
"By no means go there," they said, "but come down where we live. It is
beautiful there." The good people had a villa, it seemed, half-way
between Nice and Monte Carlo. But Mrs. Stevenson wanted to decide upon
Avignon for herself, so they went on, and found it a most picturesque
place, but soon discovered the truth of the old saw, "Windy Avignon,
liable to plague when it has not the wind, and plagued with the wind
when it has it." This wind swept strong and cold down the Valley of
the Rhone, making it so bleak and forbidding that they were forced to
cut their visit short.

They left next day for Marseilles, where