she would never ask any one to call, and if no one came, she was apt to
dig out some particularly bitter proverb, like "money alone has
many friends."

Both parents could be hospitable enough when occasion so demanded, but
it was a formal thing with them, exercised only after due preparation.
In many ways, they were large-heartedly generous, but only in a serious
manner, when actual need required it. They might give freely beyond what
they could well afford, but the father could be out of humour for days
if some little thing regarded as particularly his own had been touched
or used by another member of the family.

As it was, people came and went a good deal, but they came formally or
because some specific errand brought them, and most of the errands,
Keith soon realized, were connected with a desire for help. The old
women living like nightbirds in the garret, would drop in frequently,
and almost invariably with some tale of woe that sooner or later drew
from the mother relief in one form or another. And one of Keith's
earliest tasks, half coveted and half feared, was to walk up to one of
the attics with a plate of soup or a saucer full of jam or some other
tidbit. Others would come from the outside, and they, too, were mostly
old women. They always wanted to pat Keith, and he objected passionately
to all of them. His especial aversion was a gaunt old woman with a big
hooked nose and a pair of startlingly large, sad-looking eyes. She
always smiled, and her smile was hopelessly out of keeping with the rest
of her face. The very sight of her made Keith forget all his manners.
Time and again his mother rebuked him and tried to bring him around by
telling the old woman's story--a story of wonderful self-sacrifice and
heroic struggle--but it made no difference to him. There was something
about the sight of poverty and unhappiness and failure that provoked him