ld to whom she
could turn. She has told me that she used to lie awake nights crying and
thinking of running away, but she couldn't make up her mind to
that either."

She stopped, and Keith waited in vain for the rest of the story.

"And then," he urged.

"Oh, then she came to Stockholm and married your grandfather--my papa,
you know. And now Lena is waiting for me to tell her what we are to have
for dinner."

Keith went back to his own corner for a while. Then he made a dash for
the kitchen, where he found Granny seated in her usual place peeling
potatoes. Having placed a smaller foot-stool beside the large one in
which she was seated, he got up on it so that he could put both arms
about her neck. Pressing his own soft cheek against hers, he
asked brokenly:

"Are you very unhappy, Granny?"

"No," she answered placidly, "not when you are willing to give me a
kiss."

"All right," he said without enthusiasm as he complied with her
request. At the same time he recalled suddenly that he had not played a
single game with his tin soldiers that whole morning.

XII

The boy had a logical mind. He knew that Granny's story had not been
finished, and he wanted all of it. At the first opportune moment he
asked his mother:

"Was Granny a little girl when she came to Stockholm?"

"No," said his mother unsuspectingly, "she was already a young woman."

"What did she do before?"

"I told you," the mother replied, now on her guard.

"You told me what she did as a little girl, but not afterwards. I want
to know."

"Oh, she worked, I suppose."

There was evidently nothing more to be had in that direction.

"And what did she do in Stockholm," Keith pushed on.

"She married your grandfather, as I told you, and then I was born."

"What was he?"

The mother remained silent for a good long while, and Keith repeated his
question, not yet having learned that unanswered questions generally
are unwelcome questions.

"He was a _vaktmaestare_," she said finally, and Keith knew that, for
some reason, she found the word unpleasant.

The boy reflected a while before he observed:

"That's what papa is."

"Your father's position is quite different," his mother rejoined
sharply. "It's a shame that he and his comrades in the bank have no
other title--although some of them deserve nothing better."

"What should they be called?"

"I don't know exactly--collectors, I think, because they go around and
collect the money th