said impatiently. "We're going to take a boy like George and study him till
we think we know just what interests him most. And if in his case it's
animals, we'll have a regular zoo in school. And for other boys we'll have
other things they really want to know about. And we'll keep them until five
o'clock--when their mothers will have to drag them away." Her father looked
bewildered.

"But arithmetic, my dear."

"You'll find they'll have learned their arithmetic without knowing it,"
Deborah answered.

"Sounds a bit wild," murmured Roger. Again to his mind came the picture of
hordes of little Italians and Jews. "My dear, if I had _your children_ to
teach, I don't think I'd add a zoo," he said. And with a breath of
discomfort he turned back to his reading. He knew that he ought to question
her, to show an interest in her work. But he had a deep aversion for those
millions of foreign tenement people, always shoving, shoving upward through
the filth of their surroundings. They had already spoiled his neighborhood,
they had flowed up like an ocean tide. And so he read his paper, frowning
guiltily down at the page. He glanced up in a little while and saw Deborah
smiling across at him, reading his dislike of such talk. The smile which he
sent back at her was half apologetic, half an appeal for mercy. And Deborah
seemed to understand. She went into the living room, and there at the piano
she was soon playing softly. Listening from his study, again the feeling
came to him of her fresh and abundant vitality. He mused a little enviously
on how it must feel to be strong like that, never really tired.

And while her father thought in this wise, Deborah at the piano, leaning
back with eyes half closed, could feel her tortured nerves relax, could