Robert Louis Stevenson

n had died seven years before my friendship with the Balfours began.

'Eh!' was all the old man said, but that and the shake of his head eloquently expressed what a loss that was for me!

'But ye'll ken her?' meaning Miss Balfour, he queried again, and as I said I did and well, the face brightened with a great brightness.

So, having found a friend in common, together we went over the church and the manse grounds, but, as Dr Lockhart was away from home, I resisted his persuasion to ask leave to go through the house and contented myself with a pleasant talk with him of Dr John Balfour, who had fought the mutineers in India and the cholera at Davidson's Mains, Slateford, and Leven; of Dr George, who is still fighting the ills that flesh is heir to, in Edinburgh; of the sons and daughters of the manse who had gone to their rest; of Mrs Stevenson, then in Samoa with her son, and whose charm of personality made her dear to the old man, and lastly of 'the clivir lad,' her son, who had spe