Alicia ran out of the room to comply and for a moment I remained sitting in my chair as under a spell. Then I rose hastily to dispel such nonsensical emotions and left my room, only to come face to face with Alicia and Griselda in the dining room. "Oh, ay—yes!" muttered my aging Griselda, her swarthy countenance hot from the kitchen stove, looking more forbiddingly sybilline than ever, "It’s all over!" she added mysteriously. "What do you mean—all over?" I demanded a little stupidly, though dimly I suppose I understood her. "The young besoms grow up sae fast, it’s a meeracle they dinna wed in their cradles!" "Wed!" I cried in disgust at the word. "You women are always thinking of only one thing—even you, Griselda. Go," I turned to Alicia, "let down your hair again this minute, so you won’t put such wild notions into Griselda’s frivolous mind." Alicia laughed deliciously and even Griselda with a sort of dark twisted smile reiterated: "Oh, ay—the young besoms!" Whereupon my young woman impulsively threw her arms about Griselda and kissed the brown cheek with gusto. Griselda returned by pinching Alicia’s cheek fiercely. My nephew Randolph and a companion, a tall gawky boy coming into the house at that moment, stood in their raincoats at the dining-room door and gaped, blocking Alicia’s path. "I say! Look who’s here!" my young hopeful exclaimed with a low whistle, wagging his head from side to side. The other boy merely stared in dumb awe, twisting his wet cap in his fingers. That gawk and Alicia are the same age, yet—the difference! "Let her go through and unmask," I waved them aside and Alicia, with her head down, ran laughing out of the room. I returned to my chair and sat down as one dazed. My policy henceforth will be to frown on suchlike tricks—though I myself had instigated this one. What an occupation for a man of books and tranquillity—one who desired to write of Brunetto Latini—to add to the body of scholarship upon Dante! And suddenly I put my head down on my arms and laughed long and I am sure quite meaninglessly. For if I were a woman, I might just as easily have sobbed in a way to tear out the heart. Decidedly the suspense of awaiting news from Dibdin regarding Pendleton must be undermining my nerves. I am gey ill to live with. I seem to myself like the irascible old gentlemen in the comedies with the prithees and monstrous fine epigrams, forever taking snuff—save that there is no comedy about me. I take down books and I cannot read them. What pleasure I used to experience in leaving some of the leaves uncut in fine editions so as to cut them on further readings! I have tried to extract that joy by cutting some recently, but there is no joy in it.