ng to that game, and he wondered whether Clara might tell her
mother. At the same time the thought of what he had done filled him with
inexplicable satisfaction, as if, in some way, he had put something over
on the grown-ups.

As for his own mother--she seemed to be watching him with unusual
concern during the next few days, and he could not escape a suspicion
that she knew. Closed doors did not seem to prevent grown-up people from
knowing what children did.

At the same time he wondered why he and Clara should not be playing as
they had done. There was really nothing to it. And the comparisons they
had made took no hold of his imagination. The differences revealed he
accepted as he accepted anything that had no direct bearing on his own
happiness.

As far as he could recall afterwards, he never saw Clara again. Nor did
he seem to miss her.

X

Summer again.

The incident with Clara was forgotten. Yet Keith had a sense of being
watched a little more closely than usual. He was rarely permitted to go
out alone after his return from school. And he was scolded if he ever
was late in coming home.

There was mystery in the air. The parents talked together a good deal in
a way that made Keith understand they were talking about him and did not
want to be overheard.

As soon as school closed the secret became revealed. He would be sent
into the real country for the summer to board with perfect strangers.

"Any children," was Keith's first question. Yes, a couple of sons in the
house, and probably one or two more boys from the city, boarders
like Keith.

It seemed the thing had been planning for a long time. The mother said
something about the necessity for Keith of going where everything was
clean and wholesome--the air, the food, the people. The boy knew that
she had been worrying about him for some reason he could not guess.

An advertisement in a newspaper had led his mother on the track of what
she wanted. She read it to him--"a religious family with children of
their own would take a few well-behaved boys of good family for the
summer months and give them a real home and as good as parental care."

It turned out to be the sexton of a country parish on the northern shore
of Lake Maelaren who had devised this means of eking out his probably
limited professional income. The ensuing correspondence had proved quite
satisfactory. The mother was evidently pleased. It was almost as good as
staying with the pasto