- Business continues to pick up around Christmas and New Year's.
- Ida theorizes that a new apartment house a few blocks away is the real cause of their increased income—the apartment and the inattentiveness of Schmitz to his grocery.
- Morris tells Helen to keep more of the money she brings in from her job.
- Helen continues to see Frank a lot at the library, but he lets her walk home alone if she's so inclined.
- One night Frank tells her he plans to return to college. She's excited for him.
- To help prepare him, Helen recommends he read some famous novels that speak the Truth about Life.
- Frank struggles with them but keeps at it, knowing Helen liked them.
- In the novels—Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, and Crime and Punishment—Frank sees himself as someone whose life went to pot because he couldn't decide what to do when opportunity presented itself.