I wonder why Griselda’s Scotch broth tastes so amazingly delicious, these days. Is it possible that an invalid’s palate is more sensitive to culinary virtues and savors? I must ask the doctor. On the little table at my bedside lies the Valdarfer Boccaccio, printed 1471, which Andrews, excellent fellow, had bought at a sale in my absence and, thrice excellent fellow, brought up for my delectation when he came to visit the sick. I once spent a delightful week in the British Museum, virtually under guard, examining that rare and beautiful volume. Now its only replica in America is near me and I ought to be feasting all my senses upon its vellum-bound richness and beauty. It was once the property of a Medici and has delighted the hours of popes, princes, dukes, lords; men have longed for it, have treasured it, loved it as men treasure and love diamonds or women. It is worth a moderate fortune. But I leave it neglected. I am waiting for the rattle of a tray and the entrance of the girl behind the tray. What would Rosenbach or any decent bookman say if they knew? But I don’t care. Boccaccio himself would have approved me. Alicia enters and the room is flooded with sunshine and I am quick with life. "Why, Uncle Ranny!" Alicia pauses alarmed, tray in hand. "Do you think you have fever again? Your eyes are so bright!" "’The better to see you with,’ said the wolf," I mutter and turn away. "And your cheeks are red." She puts down the tray, ignoring my nonsense. "Let me feel if they are hot," she persists anxiously and her cool fingers barely touch my cheek which I hastily draw aside. "I have no fever, I tell you, Alicia," I murmur irritably. "I am ravenous. Food, child—food is my craving. Sit down and eat—and let me eat." "Very well, dear grouchy Uncle Ranny," answers Alicia, cheerfully placing my dishes on the invalid’s table suspended over the counterpane and leaving her own on the tray. "It shall eat to its heart’s content, it shall—this nice chop and this lovely muffin, and this luscious jam—greasing its little fisteses up to its little wristeses, the dirty little beasteses!" Whereupon I am in good humor again. "Have you looked over this Valdarfer Boccaccio at all?" asks Alicia lightly, by way of making conversation. I nod. "Isn’t it a love?" I nod again. "What a history that book has had—and you know every detail of it, I suppose. All the princes and kings who owned it—all the romance it has accumulated in nearly five hundred years—don’t you?" "Don’t I what?" "Know about it?" "Oh, yes." "Look here," cries Alicia with mock anger, "don’t you go and become a blatant materialist thinking only of money and profits—like all the rest of the world. That would be horrible, Uncle Ranny—when I’ve been adoring you so abjectly because even your business is lovely and intellectual and romantic!" And that girl is betrothed to my nephew Randolph! flashes through my mind. Aloud I say with a faint grin meant to exasperate her: