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week in the basement of the five-story brick building which housed the new, expanded quarters of the Forsyth Street Settlement. Her pupils—all but Mr. Yelteles—were fluent in English by now, and her class ought more aptly to have been called American culture. With very little direction from her anymore, the participants met to discuss anything and everything about this strange new land they'd come to, some fairly recently, some years ago. Today, as usual, they hadn't waited for her, and the painted brick walls resounded with a lively, raucous discussion already in progress. Mr. Yelteles was smoking again. Sara made a shocked face, and he dropped his cigarette on the floor and stamped on it as if it were a dangerous insect—their pleasant, unvarying ritual every time they saw each other. She took her seat in the center of the ragged semi-circle of chairs and called out, "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen."
    Eight voices echoed, "Good afternoon, Mrs. Cochrane," and immediately went back to talking, seemingly all at once.
    "Where's Tasha?" she leaned over to ask Mr. Yelteles, who was smiling his beatific smile at her.
    When he shrugged, his eyebrows almost reached to his high, silvery hairline. "Ain't comm yet. You need suspen'ehs? Cullah bottens?"
    "How much are stockings today?"
    "Six cents, such a deal."
    "We'll talk later. Rachele? Let us all hear what you and Katrin are discussing, won't you?" Gradually the room quieted and the talk focused, as she had hoped, on roughly one speaker at a time. Konstantin went on at flamboyant length about the trouble he had to endure nightly to fend off the amorous advances of his employer's wife. Turkish and darkly handsome, Konstantin had arrived in America sis years ago. He'd started out as a newspaper boy, with just enough English to shout the paper's name and enough arithmetic to make change. Now he worked as a waiter in a Russian tea room, soaking up the erudite harangues of the socialist literati who frequented it. His longterm goal in life was to attend City College and become a playwright. In the shorter term, he wanted to seduce Rachele, and he calculated that he was a little over halfway to the goal.
    "Enough already," snapped Mr. Clayman, the upholsterer.
    "Yah, enough," seconded his wife. They wanted to talk about whether Mrs. Clayman should give up her job in the cigar factory so they could start a family, or keep it so they could afford a better apartment. Everybody had an opinion and there were dozens of factors to take into consideration. The discussion ended the way they all did if related even remotely to personal money matters: Mrs. Cochrane was asked to make the final decision.
    Sara never spoke of her personal life, never hinted at what it might be like on the days when she was not on Forsyth Street. She dressed simply; she took the Third Avenue Elevated to work. Nevertheless, somehow, she was never sure how, it had become common knowledge that Mrs. Cochrane was a very rich lady. She was, as a consequence, an object of great interest and speculation. For them she stood as a shining example of the typical successful American, no more and no less, and that she was an immigrant like them only enhanced her appeal.
    How much were the Claymans paying now for their two-room apartment? she asked. Fifteen dollars a month, but it was a dump, a "stoop," and whores lived on the first floor. They wanted to move to a three-room flat on Chrystie Street because it had a range, a bath, and a water closet, but the rent was thirty dollars. How badly did they want to have a child? she asked directly—frankness was the order of the day in this class. Mr. Clayman said, "Well, you know, we'd like it, it's a thing we want, we have been waiting—" when all at once Mrs. Clayman burst into tears. She sobbed for several minutes while Rachele and Katrin patted her on the back and Mr. Clayman blew his nose.
    "Well," Sara said faintly. Everyone looked sheepish. "I think that eliminates