The Grosses had moved to London Junction from Washington, but after the first excitement over a new family in town, with the local ladies leaving cards, the different ministers’ wives calling, and invitations to town functions issued, they were left to themselves. Mrs. Gross had not responded to the welcome and, without being rude, had quietly established her family as being self-sufficient. David did not join in the school games, and was too clever in his studies to be regarded with anything but contempt and suspicion. Moreover, he was almost two years younger than the others in his class and a head shorter than Marcia. He wore thick glasses, braces on his teeth, in addition to pronouncing grass “grahs” and water “wottah” instead of “worter.” His doom so far as popularity was concerned was sealed the day he came running into class late, apologizing to the teacher, “Pardon my dishevelled appearance, but I’ve been in the woods collecting some botanical specimens.” A low hiss went around the room, in which Marcia joined, though she was secretly impressed with this bold speech. A few days later she settled her own hash by using “feminine prerogative” in a composition and was met with the same hiss when the work was read aloud. Compositions were exchanged for students to grade each other and David wrote on Marcia’s, “100% plus.” So they were obliged to be friends, quietly, and helped each other with their compositions. David explained to Marcia that “Helas” was not a girl’s name, and Marcia explained to David that the seven sisters in his story could not be just three or four months apart in their ages. It was a stimulating and helpful friendship, even though Lena jeered at it.

There was in the Gross family an older sister named Fannie who was humpbacked and painted copies of famous masters in a room she called her “studio.” (She gave Marcia her copy of the Rosa Bonheur picture that used to hang in the Elmville house.) Then there was a little old lady in a wheelchair, called Aunt Rachel, who muttered in a foreign language and had a mat of fuzzy white curls. Humpback, foreign-language speaker, and sissy in the family were social hurdles that even a fictional noblewoman could not take without some embarrassment, so Marcia and Florrie endeavored to disguise their intimacy with the new family. Mr. Gross never appeared because, David explained, his family, with the exception of Aunt Rachel, who was a little crazy, had never forgiven him for marrying a Gentile. So, to conciliate his aging parents, he had gone back to stay with them in the East.

“But Fannie and I aren’t Gentiles,” David proudly explained. “Mother has Aunt Rachel teach us our Bible and once a month she takes us to Cleveland to the synagogue, because she knows it pleases Father. When he comes back he’ll be proud of us.”

Florrie wanted to know what a Gentile was, and Marcia impatiently explained it was some kind of people in the Bible.