And he would run his fingers carelessly through his beard, as if nothing were worth any trouble. Still, a plan was simmering in his mind, of which we were speedily advised. When once he had hold of an idea nothing, neither entreaties nor protests, would induce him to let it go. Aunt Deen’s tumultuous reproaches, father’s brief, clear-cut, unanswerable arguments, mother’s entreaties,--he received them all with equal tranquillity of temper and heeded none of them. From his amiable and detached air one would have deemed him easily amenable to persuasion, if it had not been for his wicked little laugh which upset everything. One fine morning we were all informed of his decision to give up the room with two windows which he occupied in the very heart of the house, which was vast, comfortable and easy to keep warm, and to take possession of what?--no one could have guessed--the tower chamber! This room had long been unoccupied, and all the winds of heaven blew through it. No sooner had he made known his intention than the entire household, after fruitless attempts to make him abandon his purpose, must needs bend every nerve to help him move without delay. Without waiting for any of us he was already leading the way to the staircase laden with the most precious of his possessions. “Wait at least until we sweep, clean and dust,” urged Aunt Deen, armed with the wolf’s head. “It’s not worth while,” he assured her. “One can live very comfortably with spiders and dust.” This scandal at least was avoided. Aunt Deen was ahead of him, and he was obliged to have a few minutes’ patience, little as he liked it; after which he resolutely laid hold of the bannister, bearing his barometer, violin case and pipes. Down he came again for his spy-glass. The rest of the removal did not interest him at all. His clothes, linen and furniture might follow him or not, as it happened. He showed his confidence in me by requesting me to carry a treatise on astronomy, a volume about cryptograms, the coloured illustrations of which I already knew, showing the principal species of mushrooms, and another work which from its title I believed to be a book of devotion: the “Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau”--I had almost forgotten the “Prophecies of Michel Nostradamus,” and a collection of the “True Limping Messenger of Berne and Vevey,” an almanac famous and precious from every point of view, but chiefly for its meteorological bulletins. For grandfather was greatly interested in the condition of the atmosphere. He would snuff it up, so to speak, from his window morning and night, at whatever risk of taking cold; and he was always observing the movements of the clouds and the shining of the stars. He loved to cite the authority of a certain Mathew de la Drôme, with whom he was in correspondence, and whom we children had come to believe to be a sorcerer or a mender of weather. He himself used to make forecasts--and