The father was more
taciturn and reserved than usual, and even the boy could see that he was
worried. Friends and relatives came and went with a quite uncommon
frequency, and all of them spoke to Keith in a strange manner that,
although not unpleasant, had a tendency to make him choke. A hundred
times a day he was told that he must keep quiet for his mother's sake,
and that it was no time for boisterous playing--if he really must play
at all. Most of the time he was in the kitchen, and on a few occasions
he was even permitted to stay all by himself in the parlour, where there
were all sorts of big books with any number of pictures on the fine oval
table standing in front of an old sofa so huge that to crawl up on its
seat was almost like going off into another room.

Finally he was taken to the home of Aunt Brita, his father's married
sister, in another part of the town and kept there, a bewildered
prisoner in a strange land, until one day his aunt told him that his
mother was well and wanted him to come home, but that he would have to
be a more than usually good boy for a long time yet, unless he wanted to
lose his mother forever.

When, at last, he was home again, his mother pulled him up to herself in
the bed, embraced him passionately and sobbed as if it had been a
farewell instead of a greeting. He wept, too, and clung to his mother as
if in fright, while she told him that he must always do just what she
told him and, above all, not scare her by going off so that she did not
know where he was.

The father stood beside the bed watching them. And as Keith happened to
look up once, he saw that his father's eyes were moist with tears. The
boy could hardly believe it, and a little later he wondered whether he
had been mistaken, for his father spoke just then in his sternest tone,
and all he said was:

"Yes, I hope you will behave a little better after this than you have
done before."

Many more weeks went before his mother was herself again. Even then a
difference remained. She was more given to worry than before and clung
to husband and child with a concern that frequently became oppressive.

Then, one fine day, she was all gay and smiling again, and bustled about
the home with new eagerness, and told Keith a lot of things about
England, and once actually danced across the floor while he was vainly
trying to keep step with her. And the father tried hard to look his
grouchiest when he returned home that night, b