ittle tired, perhaps; but what is that?"

"Emil!" from the darkened bedroom. "How can you say that? But how! What
I have suffered to-day, only! Torture! And because I say nothing I'm not
sick."

"Go in," said Rabbi Thalmann.

So Fanny went in to the woman lying, yellow-faced, on the pillows of the
dim old-fashioned bedroom with its walnut furniture, and its red plush
mantel drape. Mrs. Thalmann held out a hand. Fanny took it in hers, and
perched herself on the edge of the bed. She patted the dry, devitalized
hand, and pressed it in her own strong, electric grip. Mrs. Thalmann
raised her head from the pillow.

"Tell me, did she have her white apron on?"

"White apron?"

"Minna, the girl."

"Oh!" Fanny's mind jerked back to the gingham-covered figure that had
opened the door for her. "Yes," she lied, "a white one--with crochet
around the bottom. Quite grand."

Mrs. Thalmann sank back on the pillow with a satisfied sigh. "A wonder."
She shook her head. "What that girl wastes alone, when I am helpless
here."

Rabbi Thalmann came into the room, both feet booted now, and placed his
slippers neatly, toes out, under the bed. "Ach, Harriet, the girl is all
right. You imagine. Come, Fanny." He took a great, fat watch out of his
pocket. "It is time to go."

Mrs. Thalmann laid a detaining hand on Fanny's arm. "You will come often
back here to Winnebago?"

"I'm afraid not. Once a year, perhaps, to visit my graves."

The sick eyes regarded the fresh young face. "Your mother, Fanny,
we didn't understand her so well, here in Winnebago, among us Jewish
ladies. She was different."

Fanny's face hardened. She stood up. "Yes, she was different."

"She comes often into my mind now, when I am here alone, with only the
four walls. We were aber dumm, we women--but how dumm! She was too smart
for us, your mother. Too smart. Und eine sehr brave frau."

And suddenly Fanny, she who had resolved to set her face against all
emotion, and all sentiment, found herself with her glowing cheek pressed
against the withered one, and it was the weak old hand that patted her
now. So she lay for a moment, silent. Then she got up, straightened her
hat, smiled.

"Auf Wiedersehen," she said in her best German. "Und gute Besserung."

But the rabbi's wife shook her head. "Good-by."

From the hall below Doctor Thalmann called to her. "Come, child, come!"
Then, "Ach, the light in my study! I forgot to turn it out, Fanny, be so
good, yes?"

F