ed there.

In this house were gathered all the heirlooms, books, old furniture,
pictures, and other interesting objects which had been brought down
from San Francisco. The St. Gaudens medallion of Stevenson was fitted
into a niche over the mantelpiece in the living-room, where Mrs.
Stevenson spent much of her time seated before the great fireplace
with the haughty Kitson on her lap. On the mantelshelf there was a
curious collection of photographs--one of Ah Fu, the Chinese cook of
South Sea memory, side by side with that of Sir Arthur Pinero, famous
playwright--silent witnesses to the wide extent of her acquaintance
and the broad democracy of her ideas.

At Stonehedge her life ran on almost undisturbed in the calm stillness
that she loved so much. Now and then she went for a day's fishing at
Serena, a place on the shore a few miles from Stonehedge. With its
background of high, rugged hills and the calm summer sea at its feet
it has a serene beauty that well befits its name.

At infrequent intervals people of note arriving in Santa Barbara
sought her out, and though she received them graciously she was
equally interested in the visit of an Italian gardener and his wife,
who came to bring her a present of some rare plant, and with whom she
had most delightful talks about the flowers of the tropics. She was
much pleased, too, when one day a Scotch couple, plain, kindly people,
came merely to look at the house where the widow of their great
countryman lived. When they came she happened to be in the garden and
they apologized for the intrusion and were about to withdraw, but the
moment she recognized the accent she welcomed them with outstretched
hands. When they left their carriage was loaded with flowers, and she
stood on the veranda waving her hand in farewell.

In August, 1909, accompanied by her daughter, Mr. Field, her nephew
Louis Sanchez, and the maid Mary Boyle, she went on a motor trip to
Sausal in Lower California, where they found that the house had been
broken into by duck hunters, and presented a forlorn appearance.
Coming from the comfort of Stonehedge to this deserted cabin was
something of a shock to the rest of the party, and but for Mrs.
Stevenson they would have left at once. "Mrs. Robinson Crusoe,"
however, justified her name with such enthusiasm that the others
caught fire. Louis Sanchez lent a ready hand to repairs and under his
magic fingers doors swung upon their hinges, tables ceased to wabble,