3rd. Was she there in the summer of 1884? You see, I begin to fear that Mrs. Desborough may have deceived me on some trifling points, for she is not a lady of peddling exactitude. If this should prove to be so, I will give your daughter a proper certificate, and her house property will return to its original value. Can man say more?—Yours very truly, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. I saw the other day that the Eternal had plagiarised from _Lost Sir Massingberd_: good again, sir! I wish he would plagiarise the death of Zero. TO W. H. LOW _Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _Jan. Somethingorother-th_, 1886. MY DEAR LOW,—I send you two photographs: they are both done by Sir Percy Shelley, the poet’s son, which may interest. The sitting down one is, I think, the best; but if they choose that, see that the little reflected light on the nose does not give me a turn-up; that would be tragic. Don’t forget ‘Baronet’ to Sir Percy’s name. We all think a heap of your book; and I am well pleased with my dedication.—Yours ever, R. L. STEVENSON. _P.S._—_Apropos_ of the odd controversy about Shelley’s nose: I have before me four photographs of myself, done by Shelley’s son: my nose is hooked, not like the eagle, indeed, but like the accipitrine family in man: well, out of these four, only one marks the bend, one makes it straight, and one suggests a turn-up. This throws a flood of light on calumnious man—and the scandal-mongering sun. For personally I cling to my curve. To continue the Shelley controversy: I have a look of him, all his sisters had noses like mine; Sir Percy has a marked hook; all the family had high cheek-bones like mine; what doubt, then, but that this turn-up (of which Jeaffreson accuses the poet, along with much other _fatras_) is the result of some accident similar to what has happened in my photographs by his son? R. L. S. TO THOMAS STEVENSON [_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _January_ 25, 1886.]