Keineth could not remember her own mother, she had died when Keineth was three years old; and as far back as she could remember Tante had always taken care of her. These three, the golden-haired delicate child, the serious-faced Belgian gentlewoman, who had given up a position in one of New York's schools to go into John Randolph's household, and the father himself, living for his work and his daughter, led what might seem to others a very strange life. The man had kept his home in the old brick house on Washington Square in lower New York even after the other houses in the square around it gradually changed from pleasant, neat homes to shabby boarding-houses or rooming houses with broken windows and railless steps; to dusty lofts; to cellars where Jews kept and sorted over their filthy rags; to dingy attic spaces where artists made their studios, turning queer, dilapidated corners into what they called their homes. The third story of the Randolph house had been let for "light housekeeping apartments"; Keineth herself had helped tack the little black and gilt sign at the door. The tenants used the side door that let into the brick-paved alley. Keineth had always felt a great pride in their home--it was always neatly painted, their steps shone, and there were no papers collected behind their iron gratings. Even across the park she could see the bright geraniums blooming in the windows under Madame Henri's loving care. Keineth and Tante had two big sleeping rooms facing the square and Daddy had a smaller room in the back. Dora, the colored maid who kept the house in order and cooked breakfast and lunch, went away at night. The rooms were very large, with high ceilings. The windows were long and narrow and hung with heavy, dusty curtains. The furniture was very old and very dull and dark, but Keineth loved the great chairs into which she could curl herself and read for hours at a time. There were few children in the square for her to play with. Next door was an Italian family with eight girls and boys, and Keineth sometimes joined them in the park. Their father kept a fruit stall in the basement on one of the streets running off from the square. Francesca, one of the girls, sang very sweetly, often standing on the corner of the square and singing Italian folk-songs until she had gathered quite a crowd around her and had collected considerable money. Keineth loved to listen to her. But Daddy had asked Keineth never to go alone outside of the square nor out of sight of the windows of their own home, and Keineth, all her life, had always wanted to do exactly as her father asked her.