MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,---And a very good Christmas to you all; and better fortune; and if worse, the more courage to support it--which I think is the kinder wish in all human affairs. Somewhile--I fear a good while--after this, you should receive our Christmas gift; we have no tact and no taste, only a welcome and (often) tonic brutality; and I dare say the present, even after my friend Baxter has acted on and reviewed my hints, may prove a White Elephant. That is why I dread presents. And therefore pray understand if any element of that hamper prove unwelcome, _it is to be exchanged_. I will not sit down under the name of a giver of White Elephants. I never had any elephant but one, and his initials were R. L. S.; and he trod on my foot at a very early age. But this is a fable, and not in the least to the point: which is that if, for once in my life, I have wished to make things nicer for anybody but the Elephant (see fable), do not suffer me to have made them ineffably more embarrassing, and exchange--ruthlessly exchange! For my part, I am the most cockered up of any mortal being; and one of the healthiest, or thereabout, at some modest distance from the bull's eye. I am condemned to write twelve articles in Scribner's Magazine for the love of gain; I think I had better send you them; what is far more to the purpose, I am on the jump with a new story which has bewitched me--I doubt it may bewitch no one else. It is called _The Master of Ballantrae_--pronounce B[=a]ll[)a]n-tray. If it is not good, well, mine will be the fault; for I believe it is a good tale. The greetings of the season to you, and your mother, and your sisters. My wife heartily joins.--And I am, yours very sincerely, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _P.S._--You will think me an illiterate dog: I am, for the first time, reading Robertson's sermons. I do not know how to express how much I think of them. If by any chance you should be as illiterate as I, and not know them, it is worth while curing the defect. R. L. S. TO CHARLES BAXTER The following letter invites Mr. Baxter to allow himself (under an _alias_) and his office in Edinburgh to figure in a preface to the new story. Such a preface was drafted accordingly, but on second thoughts suppressed; to be, on renewed consideration, reinstated in the final editions. _Saranac Lake, January '88._