pointedly at anything in particular. Suddenly Keith, who followed her
every movement as if hypnotized, was startled by meeting the hard gaze
of her calm, pale-blue eyes. Those eyes illuminated her small, wrinkled
face so completely that the boy saw nothing else. Gone were her trimmed
wig, her black shawl, her wide skirt of a checkered grey. Gone were even
her thin, tight lips that used to close with the firm grip of a vice.
Nothing was left but the eyes that looked him through and through until
it was impossible for him to stand still any longer.

"What is the matter with Keith," she asked. "Sick, too?"

"No, thank heaven," the mother blurted out. "We have nothing to complain
of his health--"

"No," the father broke in with a suggestion of grim humour, "not about
his health, but--"

"Of course," the old lady said with a nod of comprehension. "I don't
wish to criticize anybody or anything, but I don't think Keith is very
obedient. He wants to pick and choose, I suppose, as if the food were
not good enough for him."

"Well, he can't," the father rejoined.

"Children should eat anything and be glad to get it at that. Mine never
thought of refusing what I gave them. If they ever had...."

She didn't finish the sentence, but it made Keith feel that he would
never have dared one word of protest about the soup if the grandmother
had been there a little earlier. Yet she spoke without marked feeling,