“I don’t say we are better than anybody else,” said the mother, addressing herself to the aunt rather than to Keith.  “But I don’t know what he is doing when he is down there, and Johan seems such a clod that I can’t see why Keith wants to play with him.”

“Why can’t Johan come up here,” asked Keith.

“Because ...,” said his mother, and got no further.

“Yes,” the aunt declared in a tone of absolute finality, “you must send him to school.”

No sooner had the aunt taken her leave than Keith assailed his mother with excited demands for further information.  She took his head between her both hands and looked at him as if she would never see him again.

“Only five,” she said at last, “and already he wants to get away.  A few years more—­a few short years—­and you will be gone for good, I suppose.”

“Oh, mamma,” he protested, “you know that I shall never leave you!”

“No, never entirely,” she cried, kissing him fervently.  “Promise me you won’t, Keith!”

He promised, and then he wanted to know what they did in school.  But she began to talk about difficulties and dangers and temptations and all sorts of things he couldn’t grasp.  She spoke with intense feeling, and as always when she was deeply moved, his whole being was set vibrating in tune with her mood.  His cheeks flushed, his throat choked, his eyes brimmed over with tears, and at last he began to wonder whether he had not better stay right where he was.  Her eyes were dim with tears, too, and once more she took his head between her hands and looked an endless time before she said: 

“Now you are beginning life in earnest, Keith!”

PART II

I

One day in the early autumn Keith’s mother dressed him with unusual care and kissed him several times before they left the house.  Granny had to be kissed, too, and even Lena came forward to shake hands and say good-bye.  It was a very solemn affair.

Hand in hand Keith and his mother walked clear across the old City, past Great Church, until they came to a very broad lane at the foot of which was a square with a statue in it.  At the other end of the square lay a very large, red building.

“That’s the House of Knights where all the nobility hang up their coats-of-arms,” said the mother.

But Keith was too excited to ask any questions at that moment.

They entered a house much finer and neater than their own and stopped in front of a door on the second floor.  A hubbub of shrill voices could be heard from within.  Keith gripped his mother’s hand more firmly.

Then the door was opened by a white-haired lady with spectacles and they were admitted to a large room, containing a score of little boys and girls.  A dead silence fell on the room as they appeared, and every eye turned toward Keith, who blushed furiously as was his wont whenever he found himself observed.