ing me carte-blanche for Cummy's benefit. I call
this message characteristic, because I find in her letters such
passages as this: 'Please, dear Cummy, always let me know instantly
when there is anything in the world I can do to add to your comfort,
your happiness, or your pleasure. There is so little I can do for you,
and I wish to do so much. You and I are the last; and we must help
each other all we can, until we, too, follow.'"[74]

[Footnote 74: Quoted by courtesy of Lord Guthrie.]

When Cummy died Mrs. Stevenson was represented at the funeral by Mr.
A. P. Melville, W. S., and a wreath ordered by her was placed on the
coffin. She also bore the expense of Cummy's last illness and funeral
and had a handsome tombstone put up in her memory.

In these days the sands began to run low in the hour-glass of the life
of Fanny Stevenson, and a great weariness seemed to be settling upon
her. Writing to Mr. Scribner in June, 1913, she says: "All my life I
have taken care of others, and yet I have always wanted to be taken
care of, for naturally I belong to the clinging vine sort of woman;
but fate seems still against me." Nevertheless, I truly believe she
enjoyed being the head of her clan, the fairy godmother, the
chieftainess of her family, to whom all came for help and counsel. But
now the shadows of evening were growing long, and she was getting
very, very tired.

But, world-weary as she was, she consented at this time to prepare for
publication in book form the notes which she had taken, primarily for
her husband's use, of one of their voyages in the South Seas. As it
happened, he made little use of the notes, so that most of it was new
material. In this work, for dear memory's sake, she took a real
pleasure, of which she speaks in the preface in these words: "The
little book, however dull it may seem to others, can boast of at least
one reader, for I have gone over this record of perhaps the happiest
period of my life with thrilling interest." The book was brought out
by Charles Scribner's Sons, under the title of _The Cruise of the
"Janet Nichol"_, and it has a melancholy interest, apart from its
contents, as the last work done by her in this life. She had only
finished the reading of the proofs a few days before her death, and
the book did not appear until some months afterwards.

In November, 1913, she was threatened with asthma, and in consequence
went to spend some time at Palm Springs, a health re