Salvina was not sorry to have her mother's silent lachrymosity thus interpreted. But she regretted that her helpless parent had not expressed her satisfaction with gossip when the Ghetto provided it, instead of yearning for higher scenes. She tried again to persuade Mrs. Brill to learn to read by way of mental resource, and Mrs. Brill indeed made some spasmodic efforts to master the alphabet and the vagaries of pronunciation from an infant's primer. But her brain was too set; and she forgot from word to word, and made bold bad guesses, so that even when "a fat cat sat on a mat" she was capable of making a fat cow eat in a mug. She struggled loyally though, except when Salvina's attention relaxed for an instant, and then she would proceed by leaps and bounds, like a cheating child with the teacher's eye off it, getting over five lines in the time she usually took to spell out one, and paradoxically pleased with herself at her rapid progress. Salvina was in despair. There is no crêche for mothers, or she might have sent Mrs. Brill to one. She bethought herself of at last laying on a servant, as providing the desired combination of grandeur and gossip. To pay for the servant she undertook two hours of extra night-teaching. But the maid-of all-work proved only an exhaustless ground for grumbling. Mrs. Brill had never owned a servant, and the girl's deviation from angelhood of character and unerring perfection of action in every domestic department were a constant disappointment and grief to the new mistress. "A nice thing you have done for me," she wept to Salvina, having carefully ascertained the servant was out of ear-shot, "to seat a mistress on my head--and for that I must pay her into the bargain." "Aren't you glad you haven't got three servants?" said Salvina, with a touch of irresistible irony. "Don't throw up to me that you're saving me from falling on your father. I can be my own bread-winner. I don't want your doll's house furniture that one is scared to touch--like walking among eggshells. I'd rather live in one room and scrub floors than be beholden to anybody. Then I should be my own mistress, and not under a daughter's thumb. If only Kitty would marry, then I could go to _her_. Why doesn't she marry? It isn't as if she were like you. Is there a prettier girl in the whole congregation? It's because she's got no money, my poor, hardworking little Kitty. Her father would give her a dowry, if he were a man, not a pig." "Mother!" Salvina was white and trembling. "How can you dream of that?" "Not for myself. I'd see him rot before I'd take a farthing of his money. But I'm not domineering and spiteful like you. I don't stand in the way of other people benefiting. The money will only go to some other vermin. Kitty may as well have some." "Lazarus has some. That's enough, and more than enough." "Lazarus deserves it--he is a better son to me than you are a daughter!" and the tears fell again.