"I think Mrs. Carlsson is very ungrateful," said Lena. "There are
thousands of old people who would give anything to have a nice home and
nothing to worry over."

"Anybody can talk, but it takes a head to keep silent," said Granny
impersonally, quoting another old saw. Then her manner changed abruptly
and she turned to Keith effusively.

"Give me a kiss! You love your old Granny, don't you? You don't despise
her, do you, because she has nothing and is nothing? And can be sure she
loves you more than anybody else."

The boy's feelings were so mixed that he really could not feel anything
at all. His arm was still about the grandmother's neck, mechanically he
gave her the kiss she asked for, but it was with real relief he saw his
mother open the door to the living-room and responded to her demand that
he go to bed at once.



XI

Hardly any memory left behind by Keith's childhood was more acute than
the image of Granny seated in the centre of the kitchen, her stolid, yet
pleasant old face bent over some household task, and her whole figure
instinct with a passive protest against her enforced dependency or,
maybe against life's arbitrariness in general. One moment she seemed to
be brooding deeply, and the next she looked as if there was not a
thought in her head. For one reason or another, her anomalous position
and peculiar attitude occupied Keith's mind a great deal, and many of