he father muttered, when Keith was ready at
last.

Then they left, having been kissed several times each by the mother, who
warned Keith not to let go of his father's hand under any circumstances
while they were on the streets.

Down in the passageway on the ground floor, Keith started to take off
the muffler.

"No," said the father. "Now you keep it on. Your mother has told you to
wear it, and you must not take it off behind her back."

"But you didn't want me to have it on," Keith protested in genuine
surprise.

"No, I didn't, because I want you to be hardened and grow up like a man.
But there is something I want still more, and that is for you to obey
your mother, first because children should always obey their parents,
and secondly because it makes your mother very unhappy if you don't do
as she tells you."

His tone changed slightly during the last part of his remark. Something
of an appeal came into it and went straight to Keith's heart, filling it
with a glow of righteous determination. It was always that way with him.
A word spoken kindly made him eager to comply, and that was particularly
the case if it came from some person not given to sentimentality.

In the lane they turned and saw the mother lying in the window to watch
them. As usual, kisses were thrown back and forth as they passed up the
lane, but Keith felt rather impatient about it, and it was with a marked
sense of relief he turned the corner into East Long Street. He was eager
to push ahead into unknown regions and did not care to look back.

Although he spoke little enough, the father proved a more genial
companion than Keith had dared to expect. In fact, he had been a little
oppressed at the thought of being entirely alone with the father, which
was quite a new experience to him. But now he found it a pleasure, and
their communion seemed more easy than when the mother was with them. He
walked sedately enough, clinging to one of his father's soft, white
hands, but every so often he ventured a skip and a jump without being
rebuked, and on the whole he felt the kind of happiness that used to
come on Christmas Eve, after the father had started to distribute
the presents.

Keith had frequently accompanied his mother as far as the little square
at the end of the street, and he pointed proudly to the grocery store
where he had helped to buy things.

"Yes," responded the father, and again his tone seemed strangely
unfamiliar to the boy. "I mi