the case.

A severe cross-examination followed his return home. In the midst of it,
Keith made a grievous strategic mistake, lured on by his insatiable
curiosity about strange words.

"Why does Johan call his mamma 'mumsey' and his papa 'popsey,'" he asked
unexpectedly. "It sounds funny."

"Because he does not know any better," his mother rejoined with
unmistakable disapproval. "It doesn't sound nice, and it isn't nice."

"But his papa and mamma don't care," Keith objected.

"That's the worst of it," said the mother. "It shows they are not very
nice people, and I wish to talk to your father before you can play with
Johan any more."

"I have heard of them," the grandmother piped up, making them both turn
towards her, one hopefully and the other doubtfully.

The grandmother never left the kitchen. She walked from the sofa to the
big foot-stool, from the foot-stool to the table by the window, and from
the table back to the sofa. Sometimes she would not be seen talking to
another person for days. And yet she had a miraculous way of surprising
the rest of the family with pieces of gossip picked out of the air, one
might think. There was apparently not a person in the neighbourhood of
whom she had not heard, and about whom she could not give some more or
less intimate piece of information. They were all perfect strangers to
her, but she followed their lives with as much keenness for minute