e 5: Now Sir Graham and Lady Balfour. Sir Graham
is a cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson, and his
biographer.]

After this sad event the bereaved mother was so listless and broken in
health that the doctor advised a change to some quiet country place,
where she could get the benefit of outdoor life and better air than in
the stuffy little Paris apartment. A casual acquaintance, Mr.
Pardessus, an American sculptor whom they had met at the art school,
told them about Grez, a little village in Fontainebleau Forest on the
River Loing, where there was a ruined castle, a picturesque old inn,
and a lovely garden on the river-bank. Above all, it was modest in
price and so retired that it was almost unknown to ordinary
travellers. This alluring description was not to be resisted, and Mrs.
Osbourne, with her little family, now sadly bereaved, left for the
place which was to play so momentous a part in her future.

When they reached Grez they found there only one visitor--Mr. Walter
Palmer, then a young student, who was painting in the garden. It was a
quiet, restful place, and Mrs. Osbourne began to recover the tone of
her health and spirits in its peaceful atmosphere.

[Illustration: The bridge at Grez.]

Previous to this time women artists had been practically unknown in
the colonies about Fontainebleau, and the men who haunted these places
were disposed to resent the coming of any of the other sex. The news
that an American lady and her two children had arrived at Grez spread
consternation among them, and they sent a scout, Mr. R. A. M.
Stevenson,[6] ahead to look over the situation and report. The choice
of scout was scarcely a wise one, for "Bob" Stevenson, as he was known
to his friends, instantly fell a victim to the attractions of the
strangers--who, by the way, were utterly unconscious that they were
regarded as intruders--and so he stayed on from day to day. After
waiting some time for the return of the faithless emissary, another,
Sir Walter Simpson, was sent, but he, too, failed to return. Then
Robert Louis Stevenson set out to look into the mystery. His coming
had been led up to like a stage entrance, for first his cousin had
told wonderful stories of adventures in which Louis was always the
hero--what Louis did, what Louis said--until the two Americans,
mother and daughter, began to get interested in this fascinating
person; and then came Sir Walter, with more stories of Louis--stories