Read "The Keeper of Conscience" by Israel Zangwill online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
When Salvina was twenty-three years old a change came. Lazarus ceased to demand assistance: he was cheery and self-confident, and inclined to chaff Salvina on her prim ways. He removed to a larger house and her easy-chair disappeared before a more elegant. And the apparent brightness of her brother's prospects brightened Salvina's. Her savings increased, and, under the continuous profit of his self-support, she was soon able to meditate changes on her own account. Either she would give up her night-teaching -- which had been more and more undermining her system -- or she would procure her mother and Kitty a delightful surprise by migrating back to Hackney.
Her mind hesitated between the joyous alternatives, lingering voluptuously now on one, now on the other, but somehow aware that it would ultimately choose the latter, for Kitty on her rare visits never failed to grumble at the lowness of the neighbourhood and the expense of cabs, and Mrs. Brill still yearned to see horses pawing outside her door-step. But an unexpected visit from Kitty, not six weeks after her last, and equally unexpected in place -- for it was at Salvina's school -- decided the matter suddenly.