aring on its bosom a snowy sifting of powdered sugar.
There were others whose centers were apricot, pure molten gold in
the sunlight. There were speckled expanses of cheese kuchen, the
golden-brown surface showing rich cracks through which one caught
glimpses of the lemon-yellow cheese beneath--cottage cheese that had
been beaten up with eggs, and spices, and sugar, and lemon. Flaky crust
rose, jaggedly, above this plateau. There were cakes with jelly, and
cinnamon kuchen, and cunning cakes with almond slices nestling side by
side. And there was freshly-baked bread--twisted loaf, with poppy seed
freckling its braid, and its sides glistening with the butter that had
been liberally swabbed on it before it had been thrust into the oven.

Fanny Brandeis gazed, hypnotized. As she gazed Bella selected a plum
tart and bit into it--bit generously, so that her white little teeth met
in the very middle of the oozing red-brown juice and one heard a little
squirt as they closed on the luscious fruit. At the sound Fanny quivered
all through her plump and starved little body.

"Have one," said Bella generously. "Go on. Nobody'll ever know. Anyway,
we've fasted long enough for our age. I could fast till supper time if
I wanted to, but I don't want to." She swallowed the last morsel of
the plum tart, and selected another--apricot, this time, and opened her
moist red lips. But just before she bit into it (the Inquisition could
have used Bella's talents) she selected its counterpart and held it out
to Fanny. Fanny shook her head slightly. Her hand came up involuntarily.
Her eyes were fastened on Bella's face.

"Go on," urged Bella. "Take it. They're grand! M-m-m-m!" The first bite
of apricot vanished between her rows of sharp white teeth. Fanny shut
her eyes as if in pain. She was fighting the great fight of her life.
She was to meet other temptations, and perhaps more glittering ones, in
her lifetime, but to her dying day she never forgot that first battle
between the flesh and the spirit, there in the sugar-scented pantry--and
the spirit won. As Bella's lips closed upon the second bite of apricot
tart, the while her eye roved over the almond cakes and her hand still
held the sweet out to Fanny, that young lady turned sharply, like a
soldier, and marched blindly out of the house, down the back steps,
across the street, and so into the temple.

The evening lights had just been turned on. The little congregation,
relaxed, weary, weak f