“I am glad to see you, mother,” said Keith’s father, rising quickly as a little old woman appeared in the kitchen doorway.  His tone surprised the boy.  There was warmth in it, but still more of reverence bordering on awe, and also something of pride.  Thus might a queen be greeted, but only by those nearest and dearest to her.  What struck the boy most of all, however, was the world of difference lying between that tone and the one in which the father addressed his wife even in moments of closest understanding.  It gave Keith his first clear glimpse of the distinction between love and respect, between sympathy and trust.

“So you are home, Carl,” the grandmother remarked in her usual quiet, matter-of-fact manner.  Then she turned to her daughter-in-law, who had also risen to her feet:  “Is your head as bad as usual, Anna?”

“Thank you,” answered Keith’s mother, and the boy could sense that she was not at her ease although she smiled pleasantly.  “Those new powders I got from Dr. Skoeld helped a great deal.”

“Hm,” grunted the older woman as she walked across the room and sat down on a chair not far from Keith.  “I had no time or money to bother with powders at your age, but times have changed.”

She was taking in every detail of the room as she spoke, without looking pointedly at anything in particular.  Suddenly Keith, who followed her every movement as if hypnotized, was startled by meeting the hard gaze of her calm, pale-blue eyes.  Those eyes illuminated her small, wrinkled face so completely that the boy saw nothing else.  Gone were her trimmed wig, her black shawl, her wide skirt of a checkered grey.  Gone were even her thin, tight lips that used to close with the firm grip of a vice.  Nothing was left but the eyes that looked him through and through until it was impossible for him to stand still any longer.

“What is the matter with Keith,” she asked.  “Sick, too?”

“No, thank heaven,” the mother blurted out.  “We have nothing to complain of his health—­”

“No,” the father broke in with a suggestion of grim humour, “not about his health, but—­”

“Of course,” the old lady said with a nod of comprehension.  “I don’t wish to criticize anybody or anything, but I don’t think Keith is very obedient.  He wants to pick and choose, I suppose, as if the food were not good enough for him.”

“Well, he can’t,” the father rejoined.

“Children should eat anything and be glad to get it at that.  Mine never thought of refusing what I gave them.  If they ever had....”

She didn’t finish the sentence, but it made Keith feel that he would never have dared one word of protest about the soup if the grandmother had been there a little earlier.  Yet she spoke without marked feeling, without hardness, almost kindly.  It was plain as she went on, that she believed intensely in what she said, and that it touched the very foundations of existence as she saw it: