She said 'That Stevenson
man' with a sneer, and, it was never easy to her to sneer. At
thought of him her face would become almost hard, which seems
incredible, and she would knit her lips and fold her arms, and
reply with a stiff 'oh' if you mentioned his aggravating name. In
the novels we have a way of writing of our heroine, 'she drew
herself up haughtily,' and when mine draw themselves up haughtily I
see my mother thinking of Robert Louis Stevenson. He knew her
opinion of him, and would write, 'My ears tingled yesterday; I sair
doubt she has been miscalling me again.' But the more she
miscalled him the more he delighted in her, and she was informed of
this, and at once said, 'The scoundrel!' If you would know what
was his unpardonable crime, it was this: he wrote better books than
mine.
I remember the day she found it out, which was not, however, the
day she admitted it. That day, when I should have been at my work,
she came upon me in the kitchen, 'The Master of Ballantrae' beside
me, but I was not reading: my head lay heavy on the table, and to
her anxious eyes, I doubt not, I was the picture of woe. 'Not
writing!' I echoed, no, I was not writing, I saw no use in ever
trying to write again. And down, I suppose, went my head once
more. She misunderstood, and thought the blow had fallen; I had
awakened to the discovery, always dreaded by her, that I had
written myself dry; I was no better than an empty ink-bottle.
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