y that they were
simple souls, risen by thrift from very humble origins. They had a
single daughter, a girl of delicate health and looks with whom Keith
probably would have fallen in love hopelessly if she had stayed in the
house. But she married early, moved to some other city and was rarely
seen in her old home. Reports of her progress were received, of course,
and passed on in the hearing of Keith, but like so many other things not
touching his own life closely, it carried no real meaning to his mind.
The parties continued, and Keith's parents were often invited, partly
because the old couple was too simple-minded to think of social
distinctions, and partly because they both came from the same district
as Keith's Granny. Keith would be allowed to come along at times, and he
liked the idea of going and the good food, but otherwise he found it
dull business watching a lot of grown-up people seated solemnly about
square tables playing cards. Then, one day, the old lady died, and Keith
attended a part of the funeral, and from the window he saw the coffin
taken away in a hearse buried in flowers. It made him ask many questions
of his mother, but none of her answers brought death any closer to his
mind. After all, the old lady had been nothing to him, and if the
parties should cease as he heard was likely, the loss did not seem great
to him. The only thing that made a real difference to him was his
discovery that there would be no more of those ball-shaped gingersnaps
that the old lady used to bake herself and keep in an earthen jar almost
as tall as Keith.

The front part of the ground floor was used as an office of some kind in
those early days, but the middle part facing the long row of outhouses
was a human habitation. The rooms were so dark that a lamp had to be
used most of the day, and the principal entrance was direct from the
courtyard. An old workman and his wife lived there until the office in
front was changed into a coffee-house and those rooms toward the
courtyard became the kitchen. When it happened, some one told Keith's
mother a story which she in her turn conveyed to the boy.

History repeated itself, she said, and Keith already knew that history
was something that had happened before he was born. One hundred years
ago, when Gustavus III was king of Sweden and things were more exciting
than in these later days of outward and inward peace, there used also to
be a coffee-house on the ground floor, and a wi