Carolina, lived on water and hope.” Fanny lay still, with her eyes shut. In the pause: “Then it happened,” she murmured. “Yes,” --As always. Lord, why is it always? Why do you break the soil In which you plant the seed? “--the old master, Tessie says she loved him, waved his hands and pulled his beard. ‘You have talent, Fraulein. O you have genius. You are music! But those hands. What are we going to do about that hand?’ They were too small, Fan. You saw ’em. They were too small. You got to do all sorts of stunts on a fiddle before you go in for concerts. And her fingers simply were too short. Not too short for playin’ in an orchestra or somethin’ ... but for a concert, where you stand up all by yourself.... Well, Tessie hadn’t come to New York and put the Liebovitz clan on bread and water and made the old man sell part of his religion for another part, just to play fiddle in a restaurant. She went to a doctor or something of the sort who told her he could stretch her fingers. He stretched ’em alright--“ Fanny raised herself on her arms from the pillow, her eyes still shut. “--till something tore.” “Till something broke.” “It was all over.” “I know the rest,” said Fanny. She sank back in her pillow. Both of them were quiet.... Each was conscious of the other’s breathing. The room was heavy. Clara stirred. “Shall I open a window?” she asked. “What about the other?” Fanny held her. “O I can’t say much about Sennister. I have known her for a long time ... nearly four years I think. She just is: she has no tale of woe.” “You are good friends?” “Yes. I have learned a lot from Susan. She is wise. She has a brain, I’ll tell you. She thinks a lot ... and reads.” “What does she read?” “O books you’ve never heard of. But I don’t think she gets her ideas from them. They’re _hers_, you bet.” “Tessie, I guess, has learned a lot from her also.” “She’s our Sunday school teacher,” Clara smiled. “I see.” “She has a religion. She believes--shall I tell you what she says?” “Why not?” “She says: ‘I believe in the power of Hate, I believe in the truth of Sin. I believe in the failure of Truth.’” Fanny was silent. “One day she made us learn all that by heart. Don’t take it too serious, Fan dear. She’d had a drop too much. She was jolly. So were we all.... It’s a joke, of course....” “Clara, you know it’s no joke. You know it’s a religion.” “I suppose so. It don’t fit in very well, though, does it? with the religion of the Bible.” “There are so many religions of the Bible. Perhaps it fits in right well.” Clara’s nervous laugh: “You and Susan’ll get on well together. You are both philosophers. But you’re both _good_--though you’re better, Dear, and deeper. I know that. Susan talks awful bad. But you know, Dear, what she says _has_ something to do with Christianity. Sort of twisted like. But it _has_. You wait and see. When you know her. Susan ... she’s like a saint....”