a little child, for he loved Mrs. Stevenson very much. It was an
awful blow to us all--it was so sudden. This place will never seem the
same to William and me, for we loved our little Madam dearly, and it
was a pleasure to do anything for her--for she was always so gentle
and sweet. I adored her from the first time I ever saw her, and will
always consider it the greatest pleasure of my life to have had the
privilege of waiting upon her.

"I remain very affectionately,

"Agnes Crowley."

When the angel of death stooped to take her he came on the wings of a
wild storm, which raged that week all through the Southwest--fitting
weather for the passing of the "Stormy Petrel." Railroads were flooded
all over the country, and her son, Lloyd Osbourne, was delayed by
washouts for some days on the way out from New York. On his arrival
the body was removed to San Francisco, where a simple funeral ceremony
was held in the presence of a few sorrowing friends and relatives. On
her bier red roses, typical of her own warm nature, were heaped in
masses. A touching incident, one that it would have pleased her to
know, was the appearance of Fuzisaki, her Japanese gardener at
Stonehedge, with a wreath of beautiful flowers. It was in accordance
with her own wish, several times expressed to those nearest her, that
her body was cremated and the ashes later removed to Samoa, there to
lie beside her beloved on the lonely mountain top.

To her own family the sense of loss was overwhelming, and I cannot
perhaps express it better than in the words of her grandson, Austin
Strong: "To say that I miss her means nothing. Why, it is as if an Era
had passed into oblivion. She was so much the Chief of us all, the
Ruling Power. God rest her soul!"

* * * * *

When Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson passed from this earth the news of
her death carried a pang of grief to many a heart in far distant
lands. One who knew her well, her husband's cousin, Graham Balfour,
writes his estimate of her character in these words:

"Although I had met Fanny Stevenson twice in England, I first came to
know her on my arrival at Vailima in August, 1892, when within a
single day we established a firm friendship that only grew closer
until her death. The three stanzas by Louis so completely expressed
her that it seems useless for a man to add anything or to refine upon
it:

'Steel-true