Page:Robert Louis Stevenson - a Bookman extra number 1913.djvu/41

STEVENSON'S TWO MOTHERS according to R. L. Stevenson." It was a gospel she preached by precept and example, and she took pains to impress it on her little son, so when he grew "well and old," it tided him over many of the ills of life.

Of his "second mother, my first wife," as he called his faithful Alison Cunningham, bereft of her boy and of her mistress, who so generously let her share her only child with her, the mistress who grew into Cummy's best friend, she was left as she with hopefulness said, "not for long," Mrs. Stevenson on her last visit to Cummy's snug home noted the crape still on her dress which she had donned when the fell news came from Samoa. "Don't take it off, Cummy," she said, as she touched this trapping of woe. She well knew Cummy's mourning was not only an outward sign of grief. These two angels "of his infant life," overcoming their national Scots reserve, had for his sake proudly worn their hearts upon their sleeves, so he who ran might read engraven thereon his first mother's last word on earth—"Louis."

1897.