The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls

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place, with its piles of biscuit boxes and spice tins, the rack for
buttered eggs, the little window that let in the sunshine and the
flickering shadows of leaves, and the strong sweet odor of everything
that pleaseth the taste of men....

"Opposite the study was the parlor, a small room crammed full of
furniture and covered with portraits, with a cabinet at the side full of
foreign curiosities, and a sort of anatomical trophy on the top. During
a grand cleaning of the apartment I remember all the furniture was
ranged on a circular grass plot between the churchyard and the house. It
was a lovely still summer evening, and I stayed out, climbing among the
chairs and sofas. Falling on a large bone or skull, I asked what it was.
Part of an albatross, auntie told me. 'What is an albatross?' I asked,
and then she described to me this great bird nearly as big as a house,
that you saw out miles away from any land, sleeping above the vast and
desolate ocean. She told me that the _Ancient Mariner_ was all about
one; and quoted with great _verve_ (she had a duster in her hand, I