My brothers and sisters were brought into my room, two by two, in succession, guarded with all sorts of advice--not to stay long, to make no noise, not to touch the medicine bottles. Naturally they were soon bored and departed. Each of them took some credit for my cure, which I owed to the prayers of Stephen and Mélanie, to Bernard’s martial exhortations and to the comfortable gaiety of Louise. As for the two little ones, they were prudently kept in the background after James, no doubt repeating what he had heard among the servants, had shouted, jumping up and down with enthusiasm, “Fançois” (he could hardly say _r_) “will soon be dead.” Grandfather never appeared at my bedside. Perhaps he apprehended no danger. I think it was rather that he had an invincible horror of illness and all that might result from it. Deeply concerned with his own health, he kept careful account of his bodily functions, and with that perfect courtesy from which he never departed he never failed to inform the entire household of the state of his internal economy; when that went ill he would lament grievously and Aunt Deen would produce from a cupboard a venerable instrument which when rubbed up and mended was still good for use. “Nothing is more important,” he would say, in our presence, gazing upon the instrument with a satisfied air. My convalescence was a period of enchantment, not for the new zest that it lent to life, the savour of which only he can taste who has deemed his life put in jeopardy, but because it truly opened to me the mysterious realm of books. I was not unfamiliar with the _Rose Library_. I knew Canon Schmid, and Jules Verne’s romances, and even the fairy tales of Perrault and Andersen, but I had never found in any of them that heart thrill which keeps you awake in bed at night, expecting, fearing some unknown delight not unmingled with danger, such as I had found in Aunt Deen’s amazing stories, and above all in the epic tales that father used to tell. Not to weary me, they began by bringing me illustrated books. Bernard let me look over the Epinal albums which he was collecting for the sake of the military costumes, and which it cost him some self-denial to lend. I begged for Gustave Doré’s Bible, of which once in the parlour by special favour I had been shown the pictures without being permitted to touch it. The two heavy volumes were propped up on the table, in great state, and I passed long hours in turning the pages. Mother would come and go in the room, somewhat surprised at my being so good, and even a little disturbed by my silence. She would approach noiselessly and look over my shoulder. “You are not getting tired?” “Oh, no!” “You are not bored?” “Oh, mamma!” “Are they beautiful?” “I don’t know.”