I am looking for the title of a book that had belonged to my mother and was in our home library. It was probably sent to her by her librarian aunt, so probably published in the 1930s, but could be older.

The story is about a boy who goes into a tower room & stares at the gates in the wallpaper, a gate opens and he imagines himself in a story behind that gates. They aren’t many gates because the wallpaper was cut quite a bit to fit around the windows in the small round room.

He lived with his aunt.

He was sad when went to the tower  room. He might have been sent there as a reprimand or he might have gone there of his own accord, or both. 

I think that each gate was a virtue and the story that unfolded in the world behind that gate exemplified that virtue.