The notary, Jean Rossignol, had been summoned to the top of a great house in the Isle St. Louis to make a will; and now, his duties finished, wrapped in a warm roquelaure and with a lantern swinging from one hand, he issued from the mansion on his homeward way. Little did he think what strange adventures were to befall him!-- That is how stories should begin. And I am offered HUSKS instead. What should be: What is: The Filibuster's Cache. Aunt Anne's Tea Cosy. Jerry Abershaw. Mrs. Brierly's Niece. Blood Money: A Tale. Society: A Novel." The time was out of joint; but Stevenson was born to set it right. Not seven years after the posting of this letter, the recent Romantic Revival had begun. In the year of his death, 1894, it was in full swing; everybody was reading not only Stevenson, but _The Prisoner of Zenda_, _A Gentleman of France_, _Under the Red Robe_, etc. Whatever we may think of the literary quality of some of these then popular stories, there is no doubt that the change was in many ways beneficial, and that the influence of Stevenson was more responsible for it than that of any other one man. This was everywhere recognised: in the _Athenæum_ for 22 December, 1894, a critic remarked, "The Romantic Revival in the English novel of to-day had in him its leader.... But for him they might have been Howells and James young men." As a germinal writer, Stevenson will always occupy an important place in the history of English prose fiction. And seldom has a man been more conscious of his mission.