Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/19

PREFATORY NOTE In spite of the many days and nights passed in the "Land of Counterpane," and shining, perhaps, all the brighter by comparison, there were brilliant episodes of play that remained clearer in my husband's memory than almost any other part of his life. He was especially happy in the companionship of two of his Edinburgh cousins,—Willie and Henrietta Traquair. As a little girl Henrietta already showed the characteristics that were her charm in womanhood. Never quarrelsome, and always cheerfully willing to take a secondary place, she nevertheless made her individuality felt, and threw a romantic glamour over every part she assumed. Even the wicked ogre, or giant, she endowed with unexpected attributes of generosity, and her impersonation of a chivalrous knight was ideal. When I last saw Henrietta, a few years ago, we both knew that she had but a little while to live, but the undaunted light in her eyes seemed to say:—

From the memory of these early days my husband plucked a blossom here and there for The Child's Garden. A beginning was made by the writing of a few verses while we stopped in Braemar. A few months later, in Hyères, the games of his childhood served in a new way again to interest and amuse him. After a terrible hemorrhage, he fell a victim to 7