the questions with which he plied his mother were concerned with Granny.
They were fairly discreet as a rule, but on the morning after the scene
just described, some impulse of which he had no clear understanding made
him perplex his mother with the abrupt question:

"Why does Granny drink?"

They were alone in the living-room at the time, she seated in her big
easy chair by the window and he, as usual, kneeling on the hassock
at her feet.

She looked up at him with as much surprise as if he had hit her
viciously. A deeper red flowed into her cheeks that kept their soft
pinkness even when she was thought at death's door and lost it only
under the pressure of extreme anger.

At the same time a look came into her eyes that gave Keith a momentary
scare. It was only a flash, however, and changed quickly into something
like the helplessness that used to characterize her glance in moments of
heavy depression. Her voice trembled a little as she spoke:

"Because Granny's life has been very hard, and not very happy."

"Tell me about it," urged the boy.

There was a long pause during which he watched his mother's face
closely. Gradually its expression changed into one of resignation, and
then into determination, as if she had made up her mind to be done once
for all with a task that could not be avoided indefinitely. It was a
long story she told, at first hesitatingly, then with an eagerness that