filled by a chair, or a footstool, or some other minor object. In later
years he often wondered how a single room of modest proportions could
hold so much of furniture and of life.

It was bedroom and study, dining-room and nursery, workroom and parlour.
There the morning toilet was made, and there his first lessons were
learned. There the father did his reading, of which he was very fond,
and there the mother sewed, darned, embroidered, wrote letters, gave
household orders, told fairy tales, and received visitors. There the
simple daily meals were served for all but Granny, who clung obstinately
to the kitchen, and there friends were feasted and cards played at
nameday and birthday parties. And there three people slept every night.

Of course, excursions could be made, particularly to the kitchen where
Granny was always restlessly waiting for "one more kiss," and once in a
great while to the "best room" which mostly was occupied by some
stranger whose small weekly rent paid the servant's wages. But to the
living-room one always returned in the end, and during his first years
this narrow confinement did not strike Keith as a hardship.

The room seemed quite large to him at that time, with distances and
vistas and diversions sufficient for his childish fancy. It was a
pleasant room, with brightly striped rag carpets on the floor and two
pretty large windows framed by snow-white lace curtains. Crammed as it
was with objects needed for its many different uses, it was always kept
in a state of the most scrupulous order and instant disaster followed
any attempt as a disarrangement.

It was a whole world by itself, full of interesting things for a small
boy to puzzle over. It was also a world in evolution. Every so often a