nce had seized him. Back of it lay a vaguely sensed mixture of
curiosity and sympathy.

Granny was in her favourite place beside the kitchen sofa, seated on a
footstool almost as large as an ordinary chair, but somewhat lower. That
stool was the one bone of contention between her and Keith, because he
was carrying it off as often as he could get at it. Turned upside down,
with Keith seated snugly between its four legs, it became a sleigh
drawn across icy plains by a team of swift reindeer, or a ship rocking
mightily on the high seas.

The kitchen was full of a peculiar sweetish smell, by which Keith knew
without looking that Granny was dressing the old wound on her left leg
that had developed "the rose" and would not heal. She was leaning far
over, busy with a bandage which she wound tightly about her leg, from
the ankle to the knee. The boy sniffed the familiar smell with a vague
sense of discomfort, which, however, did not prevent him from going up
to the grandmother and putting one arm about her neck.

"Old hurt is hard to mend," she muttered quoting one of the old saws
always on her lips. Then without raising her head, she added in the
peevish, truculent tone of a thwarted child: "You had better go back in
there before they come and get you. I am nothing but a servant, and as
such I know my place and keep it. I am less than a servant, for they
wouldn't dare do to Lena what they do to me."

"Oh, yes, they would," Lena put in from across the room. "And they would
have a right, too."

As if she had not heard at all, Granny sat up straight and looked hard
at the boy.

"Whatever you do, Keith," she said, and he noticed that her voice
sounded a little strange, "see that you make a lot of money when you
grow up. To be poor is to have no rights, and the worst thing of all is
to be dependent on others, no matter how near they are to you."

"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