He went on questioning her, unconsciously using all the compelling power that made people open their hearts to him. “And how long have you been here?” “Two years already.” “You seem to be fond of study. I suppose you go to night-school?” “I never yet stepped into a night-school since I came to America. From where could I get the time? My uncle is such an old man he can’t do much and he got already used to leave the whole house on me.” “You stay with your uncle, then?” “Yes, my uncle sent for me the ticket for America when my aunt was yet living. She got herself sick. And what could an old man like him do with only two hands?” “Was that sufficient reason for you to leave your homeland?” “What did I have out there in Savel that I should be afraid to lose? The cows that I used to milk had it better than me. They got at least enough to eat and me slaving from morning till night went around hungry.” “You poor child!” broke from the heart of the man, the scientific inquisition of the sociologist momentarily swept away by his human sympathy. Who had ever said “poor child” to her--and in such a voice? Tears gathered in Shenah Pessah’s eyes. For the first time she mustered the courage to look straight at him. The man’s face, his voice, his bearing, so different from any one she had ever known, and yet what was there about him that made her so strangely at ease with him? She went on talking, led irresistibly by the friendly glow in his eyes. “I got yet a lot of luck. I learned myself English from a Jewish English reader, and one of the boarders left me a grand book. When I only begin to read, I forget I’m on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts.” Her whole face and figure lit up with animation as she poured herself out to him. “So even in the midst of these sordid surroundings were ‘wings’ and ‘high thoughts,’” he mused. Again the gleam of the visionary--the eternal desire to reach out and up, which was the predominant racial trait of the Russian immigrant. “What is the name of your book?” he continued, taking advantage of this providential encounter. “The book is ‘Dreams,’ by Olive Schreiner.” “H--m,” he reflected. “So these are the ‘wings’ and ‘high thoughts.’ No wonder the blushes--the tremulousness. What an opportunity for a psychological test-case, and at the same time I could help her by pointing the way out of her nebulous emotionalism and place her feet firmly on earth.” He made a quick, mental note of certain books that he would place in her hands and wondered how she would respond to them. “Do you belong to a library?” “Library? How? Where?” Her lack of contact with Americanizing agencies appalled him. “I’ll have to introduce you to the library when I come to live here,” he said. “Oi-i! You really like it, the room?” Shenah Pessah clapped her hands in a burst of uncontrollable delight. “I like the room very much, and I shall be glad to take it if you can get it ready for me by next week.”