eye. After it was over she washed her hair, steamed her
face over a bowl of hot water, packed two valises, left
minute and masterful instructions with Mattie as to the
household, and with Sadie and Pearl as to the store, and was
off to Chicago on her first buying trip. She took Fanny
with her, as ballast. It was a trial at which many men
would have quailed. On the shrewdness and judgment of that
buying trip depended the future of Brandeis' Bazaar, and
Mrs. Brandeis, and Fanny, and Theodore.

Mrs. Brandeis had accompanied her husband on many of his
trips to Chicago. She had even gone with him occasionally
to the wholesale houses around La Salle Street, and Madison,
and Fifth Avenue, but she had never bought a dollar's worth
herself. She saw that he bought slowly, cautiously, and
without imagination. She made up her mind that she would
buy quickly, intuitively. She knew slightly some of the
salesmen in the wholesale houses. They had often made
presents to her of a vase, a pocketbook, a handkerchief, or
some such trifle, which she accepted reluctantly, when at
all. She was thankful now for these visits. She found
herself remembering many details of them. She made up her
mind, with a canny knowingness, that there should be no
presents this time, no theater invitations, no lunches or
dinners. This was business, she told herself; more than
business--it was grim war.

They still tell of that trip, sometimes, when buyers and
jobbers and wholesale men get together. Don't imagine that
she came to be a woman captain of finance. Don't think that