n or a treat. There were
still some of mother's delectable ginger snaps left over from the
Christmas baking.

"Your soldiers are right in front of you," his mother said in a voice
holding out no hope.

So Keith returned to the tin soldiers that were his most cherished
toys--perhaps because they drew fewer protests from above than anything
else, as being least conductive to outbursts of youthful vivacity.
Judging by the earnest attention with which he manoeuvred them on his
own little table or, in moments of special dispensation, on the
collapsible dining table placed against the wall between the two
windows in the living-room, he ought to have ended as a general.

III

All through his life Keith retained a queer inclination to arrange
furniture very precisely at right angles to the wall as close to it as
possible. It was a direct outcome of his first and most deeply rooted
impressions, received in that parental living-room, where every inch of
space had been carefully calculated, and where the smallest nook was
filled by a chair, or a footstool, or some other minor object. In later
years he often wondered how a single room of modest proportions could
hold so much of furniture and of life.

It was bedroom and study, dining-room and nursery, workroom and parlour.
There the morning toilet was made, and there his first lessons were
learned. There the father did his reading, of which he was very fond,
and there the mother sewed, darned, embroidered, wrote letters, gave
household orders, told fairy tales, and received visitors. There the
simple daily meals were served for all but Granny, who clung obstinately
to the kitchen, and there friends were feasted and cards played at
nameday and birthday parties. And there three people slept every night.

Of course, excursions could be made, particularly to the kitchen where
Granny was always restlessly waiting for "one more kiss," and once in a
great while to the "best room" which mostly was occupied by some
stranger whose small weekly rent paid the servant's wages. But to the
living-room one always returned in the end, and during his first years
this narrow confinement did not strike Keith as a hardship.

The room seemed quite large to him at that time, with distances and
vistas and diversions sufficient for his childish fancy. It was a
pleasant room, with brightly striped rag carpets on the floor and two
pretty large windows framed by snow-white lace curtains. Crammed a