grouchiest when he returned home that night, but failed. And Keith was
allowed to stay up quite late, and when he was in bed at last, and
almost asleep, he thought he saw his father in the big easy chair by the
window, with the mother seated on his lap kissing him. And just as he
was dropping off, he heard, as if in a dream, his father's voice saying:

"Look out! I think the Crown Prince is still awake!"



VI

Some persons said that Keith looked like his father, others that he was
the very image of his mother.

"He has my light hair and Carl's brown eyes," said his mother often when
that topic was under discussion, and saying it seemed to make her happy.

"As a baby he was so pretty that people would stop us on the street to
ask whose child he was," Granny might put in, if she happened to be
within hearing. Then she would add with a glance at Keith: "But that is
all gone now."

Keith himself never gave much thought to his looks, but any comparison
with his mother struck him as quite foolish.

He liked to look at her, especially at her hair, which was very
plentiful and in colour like beaten copper with glints of gold in it.
Her skin was very fair and soft as the softest velvet. Her eyes were
blue, and in bright moments they had the softness of the sky of a