text: 23
  
  On the train back as Grit sat beside Astrid, he handed her an inventory of Gridleigh's books. "Your Grandfather Gridleigh left you his entire library. I've had professionals store it, and it's waiting for you in Chicago. You'll note that some of the items are extremely rare."
  
  "He left me the whole thing?" she asked.
  
  "Every book you saw when you were a young child."
  
  As she looked at the list of items, she said, "An original copy of the Declaration of Independence?"
  
  "Yes, but there's some items more valuable than that," Grit said.
  
  "A copy of Shakespeare's First Folio," Astrid read from the list, "the Gutenberg Bible, and John James Audubon's The Birds of America, and an original copy of Don Quixote de la Mancha. These are world treasures."
  
  "Yep," Grit said. "Your grandfather told you at the time that some were quite valuable, and he was not kidding, Astrid. You have to decide what you wanna do with all your books. You charmed your grandfather that day. You probably don't even remember it."
  
  "I remember it only vaguely," she said.
  
  "Well, he left you his library and $100,000, which has grown to over $300,000. We'll find out the exact amount when we visit with James Otis."
  
  "But that means I'm rich. Really rich!" Astrid said. "How will I ever know if a man loves me or my money?"
  
  "Don't tell any of them until you're sure," Grit said.
  
  While Grit and Astrid visited Otis and Company, Colleen and Samuel visited with her aged parents. At Otis and Company, Astrid was given a complete accounting of her money and how it had grown over the past 16 years, and she decided she'd let Otis continue to invest the money for her.
  
  "Any time you need money from the account, young lady, you can let us know, and we'll wire it to any bank you designate." Astrid left satisfied that her fortune was in good hands.
  
  "Now, you have to decide what you want to do with the books," Grit said.
  
  "They're so precious... some of them... what do you think I ought to do?"
  
  "If it were me," Grit said, "I'd auction them off to a museum, which would protect them and display them to the public. Of course, you could keep whatever ones you wanted for your personal use."
  
  "Oh, but I'd be afraid to even touch them," Astrid said. "Papa, why didn't you tell me about all this earlier?"
  
  "Mama and I made the decision long ago that we didn't want to rear our children thinking they were rich and privileged," he said. "When you rear children like that, they oftimes feel superior to others, and we didn't want our children to feel like that simply because we were rich, so we've hidden the fact all these years."
  
  "I don't want my children to feel that way either," Astrid said.
  
  "Then you'll need to do what Mama and I did."
  
  "Okay, let's arrange to auction off the books," Astrid said. "Is there someone we can hire to do that?"
  
  "Oh yeah, they'll want 10 percent of whatever the auction price is," he said.
  
  "Let's do it anyway, but first I want to see the books for myself," Astrid said. "At least I can say I held them at one time."
  
  "Okay, they're being maintained by Leonard Ames, which also is an auction house. Let's go over there now."