L. Stevenson, Advocate. No
blue-bag laden clerk dropped briefs then into its letter-box. In one
of its sun-facing drawing-room windows there stood a big Australian
vine, carefully tended and trained. It was behind it, in the far
window, the eighteen-year-old lad sat when, in the winter's
gloamin', Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin, calling on his mother, was startled
by his voice joining in the conversation. The visitor says, "I
listened in perplexity and arnasement. Who was this son who talked
as Charles Lamb wrote? this young Heine with the Scotch accent? When
I came away the unseen converser came down with me to the front door
to let me out. As he opened it, the light of the gas lamp outside
('For we are very lucky with a lamp before the door,' he says) fell
on him, and I saw a slender, brown, long-haired lad, with great dark
eyes, a brilliant smile, and a gentle, deprecating bend of the head.
I asked him to come and see us. He said, 'Shall I come to-morrow?'"
He called next day, for Louis grasped at anything or any person that
he felt drawn to.
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