“Children owe everything to their parents, and the least they can do in return is to accept thankfully what they get.  That is what I did in my childhood, and I never dreamt of anything else.  I had no will but that of my parents, and I knew that I could not and should not have any will of my own.”

Everybody but the grandmother was still standing.  The mother’s face bore clear evidence of conflicting tendencies to accept and reject.  Looking at her, Keith felt, as he often did, that there was something within her that gave his view of matters a fighting chance.  The father, on the other hand, seemed of a sudden to have become a child himself, listening obediently and with absorbed approval.  It looked almost as if he were still afraid of that white-haired, fragile, tight-lipped little woman, and the sight of him filled Keith with a vague uneasiness.

“Please sit down,” said the grandmother at last.  “I did not mean to disturb you, and Keith looks as if he might fall in a heap any moment.”

“Why don’t you stand up straight, Keith,” asked his mother.  “You will never grow up unless you do, and your grandmother will think worse of you than she already does.”

“I am not blaming the child,” the old lady began in the same passive, quietly assured tone.  But before she got further, the father broke in: 

“I think Keith had better go and play in his own corner—­and please keep quiet, for grandmother and I have important things to talk of.”

Keith retired as directed, and at that moment growing up seemed to him a more unreal and impossible thing than ever.

Not long afterwards the grandmother left, both parents escorting her to the outside door.  When they returned to the living-room, Keith heard his mother say: 

“I don’t see why she should always find fault with Keith.  He’s not a bit worse than Brita’s Carl, whom she is helping to spoil just as fast as she can.”

“Well, that’s her way,” replied the father, paying no attention to the latter part of the remark.  “She was brought up that way herself, and that’s the way she brought up the four of us.”

He was evidently in high good-humour and did what Keith had never seen him do before when no company was present.  He got out a cigar from one of the little drawers in the upper part of mamma’s bureau and sat down at the still covered dining table to smoke it.  This made Keith feel almost as if they were having a party, and soon he sneaked out of his corner and joined the parents at the table.  First he stood hesitatingly beside his mother, but little by little he edged over to the father until he actually was leaning against the latter’s knee without being rebuffed.  The father even put his hand on Keith’s head, and the soup episode became very distant and dim.

“She used to lick us mercilessly,” the father said as if speaking chiefly to himself, and as he spoke there was a reminiscent smile on his face and not a trace of resentment in his voice.  “But she was absolutely just about it—­so just that she used to lick all four of us whenever one had earned it.  That was to keep the rest from thinking themselves any better, she said, and also because she felt sure that all of us had deserved it, although she had not happened to find it out.”