The Valdarfer Boccaccio lay opened on my desk—but he was four and a half centuries removed from this sunlight. I almost hated it—hated all the beloved objects about me. My precious books were dumb, inert, a clog upon all the senses. With a heart passionately hungry I craved for youth, freshness, activity. I seized the Valdarfer Boccaccio as though to hurl it from me. Then, restraining myself, I brought it down on the table with a bang that nearly shattered its precious binding. I laughed ruefully. I determined on a sudden to greet the spring for myself. Griselda came bustling as she heard me rattling the canes in the jar. "You’re going out?" she demanded. "Yes, Griselda." I am always a little apologetic with Griselda, for did she not know me as a boy? It is a part of the instinctive clutching at youth that makes us respect our elders. That puts them at once in their own elderly world. Besides, Griselda is always in the right. "Then why did ye not go with the bairns?" "_They_ didn’t want anybody with them," and I winked Spartan-wise—I can wink at Griselda. Has she not spent her life serving me? In this rare world you can do anything to people who love you enough. "Havers!" muttered Griselda, with an enigmatic toss of her old head. "Then see that ye take your light coat." "A coat to-day?" I protested. "Aye—a coat to-day, young man!" "Call me young man again, and I’ll don goloshes and fur mittens," I challenged her. "Child, I should have called ye," murmured Griselda, fumbling at the hook upon which my top coat hung. "I’ll put on rubber boots and a sou’wester for that," I told her and struggled into the sleeves as she held the garment out for me. "I wouldna go too far to-day," cautioned Griselda. "Ye’re not over strong yet." "Just a little way," I mumbled, ashamed at her affection and care for one so worthless. "Thank you, Griselda!" She would have been shocked and scandalized had she known that at that moment there was a moderate lump in my throat and that I all but kissed her brown old face. How much the spring had advanced during my days of imprisonment! The grasses were assertively green as though they had never been otherwise. Birds were twittering. Neighbors, or opulent neighbors’ gardeners, were busy at their flower beds, and early blooms in some of them, transplanted from boxes or hothouses—violets, hyacinths, daffodils, cried forth their beauties in a way to make my breath catch. Queer, hungering, clamorous sensations stirred in my emaciated frame. How well I understood at that instant Verlaine’s unshed tears of the heart when he sang: Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est la, Simple et tranquille Cette paisible rumeur—la Vient de la ville. —Qu’as tu fait, o toi que voila Pleurant sans cesse, Dis, qu’as-tu fait, toi que voila De ta jeunesse? That bitterly anguished cry of the heart: What have you made of your youth?