Stevenson, usually called Bob, visited them; a great treat for Louis,
not only because his ill health kept him from making many companions of
his own age, but because Bob loved many of the same things he did and to
"make believe" was as much a part of his life as Louis's. Many fine
games they had together; built toy theatres, the scenery and characters
for which they bought for a "penny plain and twopence colored," and were
never tired of dressing up. One of their chief delights, he says, was in
"rival kingdoms of our own invention--Nosingtonia and Encyclopædia, of
which we were perpetually drawing maps." Even the eating of porridge at
breakfast became a game. Bob ate his with sugar and said it was an
island covered with snow with here a mountain and there a valley; while
Louis's was an island flooded by milk which gradually disappeared bit by
bit.

In the spring and summer his mother took him for short trips to the
watering-places near Edinburgh. But the spot unlike all others for a
real visit was at Colinton Manse, the home of his grandfather, the
Reverend Lewis Balfour, at Colinton, on the Water of Leith, five miles
southwest of Edinburgh. Here he spent glorious days. Not only was there
the house and garden, both rare spots for one of an exploring turn of
mind, but, best of all, there were the numerous cousins of his own age
sent out from India, where their parents were, to be nursed and educated
under the loving eye of Aunt Jane Balfour, for whom he wrote:

"Chief of our aunts--not only I,
But all the dozen nurslings cry--
What did the other children do?
And what was childhood, wanting you?"

[Illustration: Colinton Manse]