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,
without hardness, almost kindly. It was plain as she went on, that she
believed intensely in what she said, and that it touched the very
foundations of existence as she saw it:

"Children owe everything to their parents, and the least they can do in
return is to accept thankfully what they get. That is what I did in my
childhood, and I never dreamt of anything else. I had no will but that
of my parents, and I knew that I could not and should not have any will
of my own."

Everybody but the grandmother was still standing. The mother's face bore
clear evidence of conflicting tendencies to accept and reject. Looking
at her, Keith felt, as he often did, that there was something within her
that gave his view of matters a fighting chance. The father, on the
other hand, seemed of a sudden to have become a child himself, listening
obediently and with absorbed approval. It looked almost as if he were
still afraid of that white-haired, fragile, tight-lipped little woman,
and the sight of him filled Keith with a vague uneasiness.

"Please sit down," said the grandmother at last. "I did not mean to
disturb you, and Keith looks as if he might fall in a heap any moment."

"Why don't you stand up straight, Keith," asked his mother. "You will
never grow up unless you do, and your grandmother will think worse of
you than she already does."

"I am not blaming the child," the old lady began in the same passive,
quietly assured tone. But before she got further, the father broke in:

"I think Keith had better go and play in his own corner--and please keep
quiet, for grandmother and I have important things to talk of."

Keith retired as directed, and at that moment growing up seemed to him a
more unreal and impossible thing than ever.

Not long afterwards the grandmother left, both parents escorting her to
the outside door. When they returned to the living-room, Keith heard his
mother say:

"I don't see why she should always find fault with Keith. He's not a bit
worse than Brita's Carl, whom she is helping to spoil just as fast
as she can."

"Well, that's her way," replied the father, paying no attention to the
latter part of the remark. "She was brought up that way herself, and
that's the way she brou