It came about—but has it come about? Or is this some mad dream from which I shall wake to the old somber reality? How can a dark turbid current so suddenly bring one out into a flashing, sparkling, sunlit lagoon, overhung with a verdure so rich and lustrous it would seem to have come fresh from the Creator’s hand? I hear birds piping in wondrous music, or do I imagine it? But I began by telling you I should be incoherent. It must have been some time past midnight when I screened the fire, put out the lights and wearily, in darkness, made my way up the stairs. The fire had unaccountably and fitfully smoked to-night and I remember the last thing I did was to take out Fred Salmon’s gold-colored certificates from the safe, examine them with smarting eyes and then gaze in sleepy astonishment at the quotation of Salmon Oil in the newspapers. According to that the shares were now worth twenty-six thousand dollars! It seemed incredible, absurd. And the year was up and I might sell the stuff. Like a miser who has nothing else in life to look for, I gazed spellbound at those securities in whose security I even now could not believe. But unlike the miser of fiction, but like my dull, stupid self, I neglected to replace the crackling papers, though I did put the Valdarfer Boccaccio in and closed the safe. In the upper passageway, I distinctly recall walking on tiptoe so that Alicia might not be disturbed. Was it hallucination I wonder, or did I actually hear like a sighing whisper through the darkness, "Good night, Uncle Ranny!" I am always imagining her voice and her gestures in my brain. I must ask her when she wakes up. At any rate, that mysterious whisper it was, or the hallucination of a whisper, that stirred me into wakefulness again. I began to undress and paused, realizing that I was now too wakeful to sleep. I donned a dressing gown over my waistcoat, adjusted the light and lay down upon the bed with Baudelaire’s "Fleurs de Mai" in my hand. A little of Baudelaire had the effect upon my mind of rich food upon a furred tongue. Why, I wondered, do I keep that gloomy book upon my bedside table? I threw it down in disgust and took up a volume of Florio’s Montaigne instead. To read and enjoy Montaigne is a certain sign of middle age. I have long enjoyed Montaigne. A French verse to the effect that "a peaceful indifference is the sagest of virtues" came into my head and with sudden violence I threw away Montaigne. I was not middle-aged. I was not indifferent. The heart of frustrated youth in me was crying out for life and love! Alicia was two doors away from me. She did not love my nephew. Could I not, if I plucked up energy and resolution, make her love me? Was I then so irrevocably Uncle Ranny? I leaped up feverishly, lifted the shade and looked out upon the blinking stars. Their message was a very simple one. From Virgo to Cassiopeia, from the Pole star to the farthest twinkler they seemed to say: