6 The Illumination of Joseph Keeler, Esq. 



lumber for local use, all became a part of those busy days that 

 filled the later years of Grandmother Keeler. Neither did the 

 wife of the old Loyalist miss telling the events of 1837, when old 

 Colonel Williams and Captain Keeler took boat with their 

 militia company to defend Toronto against the rebels. 



As Mr. Keeler read the closing words of the touching chroni- 

 cle, "Those were halcyon days," he was disturbed in his vision 

 of that past by the sound of his sons' latchkey in the hall door, 

 and their silent entrance, hoping perhaps the "governor" was 

 asleep. Finding him awake, however, they said good-night, 

 not, perhaps, without some uncomfortable feeling that it was 

 hardly fair that they should not give the home their occasional 

 presence on a Sunday evening. Mr. Keeler was too accustomed 

 to the family routine to have noticed at any ordinary time this 

 occurrence; but the reading of these annals of the past, in which 

 his family had played so pronounced a part, had aroused new 

 thoughts, which made the distance between himself and the 

 common interests of the family seem to have grown to a wide 

 gulf, and almost with a cry of longing he repeated the words, 

 "Those were indeed halcyon days!" 



