Irma glanced up quickly. But her sister-in-law always looked that way in the morning, pale and spent and a hundred years old, so she turned to the more agreeable consideration of the slice of bread. Being impartial was one of Irma's many virtues and that slice was cut into three bits, the thin end larger than the two thicker pieces. It was a pleasant sight, though no more durable than a flash of lightning, to see the boys eat it, in an instant, one chew, one swallow. Then they began to get ready for school and Irma lingeringly wrapped Ferry's knitted scarf about his neck, she was strangely tender with her sons, and they all clattered down the bare steps. Frau Stacher always rather dreaded that moment of being alone with Irma, but this morning she was glad of the sudden quiet in the apartment. She would have lain down again but for Irma's inevitable question if she did so. Clearly Irma's wasn't a house to relax in. You got up and went on. So instead of lying down, as usual she helped to wash the cups and saucers and put the room in order. Then when Irma sat down to her work by the window, she went back to her alcove and in its semi-obscurity, leaned heavily on the yet unmade divan, trying not to cough. She could hear Irma drawing the stitches of her embroidery in and out, and the little click when she picked up or lay down her scissors. She was no more alone than that. It suddenly seemed to her that the most intolerable of all her misfortunes was never, never to be alone. She started up uncomfortably as Irma called out, speaking more gently, however, than was her wont: "You're going surely to Fanny's today?" and then she heard Irma lay down her work and cross the room. As she pulled the curtain aside Frau Stacher stood up guiltily. Irma even in her preoccupation could not but see that her sister-in-law was ailing. There was no mistaking it. But Irma was determined, more determined than she had ever been about anything that she should go to Fanny's that day, that very day. Virtue or vice, 'twas all the same in Irma's eyes, all run together. Ferry had to be saved, saved that day and not another. "Hermann says that if Ferry gets over this coming year, he'll be all right." Something familiarly, sombrely fierce lay in her eyes as impatiently she looked at the frail messenger of her desire. "Yes, I'm going, Irma, you can count on me, I won't forget," she answered almost humbly. "Don't worry, we'll arrange it," and then her eyes fell on the little figure of the woman bending over waiting to have the two buckets, one filled with apples and the other with pears, put into her hands. "I'll just take it with me--to show Fanny," she continued. Irma's eyes filled with tears as she took the little carving from the table and started to wrap it in a piece of newspaper. "No, give it to me just as it is. I'll carry it in my bag," and she put it into her worn reticule that never stayed clasped and now promptly fell open as she laid it on the divan.