The Lees' city home was not at all like Keineth's old home in New York, nor like Aunt Josephine's pretentious house on Riverside Drive. Though it seemed right in the heart of the city and only a stone's throw from the business centre, it was on a quiet, broad street and had a little yard of its own all around it. The house was built of wood and needed painting, but the walks and lawns were neatly kept. Within it was simple and roomy, with broad halls and wide windows, shaded by the elms outside. Its walls were brown-toned, and yellow hangings covered the white frilled curtains at the windows. There was one big living-room, with rows and rows of bookshelves, easy chairs and soft rugs, a worn davenport in front of the fire, tables with lamps, and books and magazines spread out upon them in inviting disorder. There were flowers here, too, as at Overlook, and Peggy's bird had its home in the big bay of the dining-room, where he welcomed each morning's sunshine with glad song.
Each little girl had a room of her own, too, hung with bright chintz, with covers on the bureau and bed to match. Peggy's and Keineth's had a door opening from one to the other. Billy with his beloved wireless and other things that Peggy called "truck" was happily established in the back of the house.
In a twinkling the entire family was settled in the city, "just as though we'd never been away," Peggy declared. Then two days later Barbara started off for college.
The parting was merry. The girls had helped her pack her trunks; sitting on her bed they had superintended the important process of "doing up" her hair; and then had taken turns carrying to the station the smart patent-leather dressing-case which had been her father's gift. Everyone smiled up to the last moment before the train pulled out of the station--then everyone coughed a great deal and Mr. Lee blew his nose and Mrs. Lee wiped her eyes and Peggy sighed.
"I'd hate to be grown-up," she admitted, and as she walked away she held her mother's hand tightly.
Although Barbara's going made a great gap in the little circle, everyone was too busy to grieve. School began and with it home work; there was basket-ball and dancing school and shopping, hats and shoes to buy. Miss Harris arrived for her annual visit and much time was spent over samples and patterns. And Peggy and Keineth got their pink dresses! Then there were old friends to see, new ones to make and relatives to visit. In this whirl of excitement the Overlook days were soon forgotten!
With the city life a little of Keineth's shyness had returned. She felt lost among Peggy's many friends; the hours when Peggy was in school dragged a little. The simplicity of the Lees' city home had made her homesick for the big house in Washington Square--for its very emptiness! So because of this loneliness she spent hours at the piano eagerly practicing the technic that under Tante had been so tiresome. Mrs. Lee had engaged one of the best masters in the city and Keineth went almost daily to his funny little studio. At first she had been a little afraid of him. He was a Pole, a round-shouldered man with long gray hair that hung over his collar and queer eyes that seemed to look through and through one. But after she had heard him play she lost her shyness, for in his music she heard the voices she loved. He called her "little one," and told her long stories of Liszt and Chopin and the other masters. "They are the people that live forever," he would say.
One rainy afternoon after school Peggy went to Keineth's room and found its door shut. Peggy was cross because a cold had kept her home from basket-ball, and she deeply resented this closed door.
"I s'pose you're doing something you don't want me to know." Her ear had caught the quick rustle of paper. In a moment Keineth had opened the door, but Peggy was turning away with a toss of her head.
"Oh, if you don't want me--"