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 stopped and looked questioningly at the older woman.

But the German assistant smiled at her. “Yes,” she said, “it is. And when you have been teaching seven years the difference becomes very apparent.” She gathered up her books, still smiling in a reminiscent way. And as she went out of the door, she looked back at the glaring, sunny room as if already it were far behind her, as if already she felt the house-mother’s kiss, and heard the ’cello, and saw Klara’s tiny daughter standing by the door, throwing kisses, calling, “Da ist sie, ja!”

Lost in the dream, her eyes fixed absently, she stumbled against her fellow-assistant, who was making for the room she had just left.

“I beg your pardon—I wasn’t looking. Oh, it’s you!” she murmured vaguely. Her fellow-assistant had a headache, and forty-five written papers to correct. She had just heard, too, a