Fanny and Theodore were not always honest about the bargain.
They would gallop, hot-cheeked, through the allotted
chapter. Mrs. Brandeis would have fallen into a doze,
perhaps. And the two conspirators would read on, turning
the leaves softly and swiftly, gulping the pages, cramming
them down in an orgy of mental bolting, like naughty
children stuffing cake when their mother's back is turned.
But the very concentration of their dread of waking her
often brought about the feared result. Mrs. Brandeis would
start up rather wildly, look about her, and see the two
buried, red-cheeked and eager, in their books.

"Fanny! Theodore! Come now! Not another minute!"

Fanny, shameless little glutton, would try it again. "Just
to the end of this chapter! Just this weenty bit!"

"Fiddlesticks! You've read four chapters since I spoke to
you the last time. Come now!"

Molly Brandeis would see to the doors, and the windows, and
the clock, and then, waiting for the weary little figures to
climb the stairs, would turn out the light, and, hairpins in
one hand, corset in the other, perhaps, mount to bed.

By nine o'clock the little household would be sleeping, the
children sweetly and dreamlessly, the tired woman
restlessly and fitfully, her overwrought brain still surging
with the day's problems. It was not like a household at
rest, somehow. It was like a spirited thing standing,