_Sunday._--It has rained and blown chilly out of the East all day. This was my first visit to church since the last Sunday at Cockfield. I was alone, and read the minor prophets and thought of the past all the time; a sentimental Calvinist preached--a very odd animal, as you may fancy--and to him I did not attend very closely. All afternoon I worked until half-past four, when I went out under an umbrella, and cruised about the empty, wet, glimmering streets until near dinner time. I have finished _Roads_ to-day, and send it off to you to see. The Lord knows whether it is worth anything!--some of it pleases me a good deal, but I fear it is quite unfit for any possible magazine. However, I wish you to see it, as you know the humour in which it was conceived, walking alone and very happily about the Suffolk highways and byeways on several splendid sunny afternoons.--Believe me, ever your faithful friend, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _Monday._--I have looked over _Roads_ again, and I am aghast at its feebleness. It is the trial of a very "'prentice hand" indeed. Shall I ever learn to do anything _well_? However, it shall go to you, for the reasons given above. TO MRS SITWELL After an outpouring about difficulties at home. _Edinburgh, Tuesday, September 16, 1873._ ... I must be very strong to have all this vexation and still to be well. I was weighed the other day, and the gross weight of my large person was eight stone six! Does it not seem surprising that I can keep the lamp alight, through all this gusty weather, in so frail a lantern? And yet it burns cheerily. My mother is leaving for the country this morning, and my father and I will be alone for the best part of the week in this house. Then on Friday I go south to Dumfries till Monday. I must write small, or I shall have a tremendous budget by then.