is, looking at the black-haired,
red-lipped child sleeping there, wondered just how much determination
lay back of the broad white brow. She had said little to Fanny about
this feat of fasting, and she told herself that she disapproved of it.
But in her heart she wanted the girl to see it through, once attempted.

Fanny awoke at half past seven, and her nostrils dilated to that most
exquisite, tantalizing and fragrant of smells--the aroma of simmering
coffee. It permeated the house. It tickled the senses. It carried with
it visions of hot, brown breakfast rolls, and eggs, and butter. Fanny
loved her breakfast. She turned over now, and decided to go to sleep
again. But she could not. She got up and dressed slowly and carefully.
There was no one to hurry her this morning with the call from the foot
of the stairs of, "Fanny! Your egg'll get cold!"

She put on clean, crisp underwear, and did her hair expertly. She
slipped an all-enveloping pinafore over her head, that the new silk
dress might not be crushed before church time. She thought that Theodore
would surely have finished his breakfast by this time. But when she came
down-stairs he was at the table. Not only that, he had just begun his
breakfast. An egg, all golden, and white, and crisply brown at the
frilly edges, lay on his plate. Theodore always ate his egg in a
mathematical sort of way. He swallowed the white hastily first, because
he disliked it, and Mrs. Brandeis insisted that he eat it. Then he would
brood a moment over the yolk that lay, unmarred and complete, like an
amber jewel in the center of his plate. Then he would suddenly plunge
his fork into the very heart of the jewel, and it would flow over his
plate, mingling with the butter, and he would catch it deftly with
little mops of warm, crisp, buttery roll.

Fanny passed the breakfast table just as Theodore plunged his fork into
the egg yolk. She caught her breath sharply, and closed her eyes. Then
she turned and fled to the front porch and breathed deeply and windily
of the heady September Wisconsin morning air. As she stood there, with
her stiff, short black curls still damp and glistening, in her best
shoes and stockings, with the all-enveloping apron covering her sturdy
little figure, the light of struggle and renunciation in her face, she
typified something at once fine and earthy.

But the real struggle was to come later. They went to temple at ten,
Theodore with his beloved violin tucked carefu