If you had been standing behind her chair you would have
seen, emerging miraculously from the white surface under
Fanny's pencil, a thin, undersized little figure in sleazy
black and white, whose face, under the cheap hat, was
upturned and rapturous. Her skirts were wind-blown, and the
wind tugged, too, at the banner whose pole she hugged so
tightly in her arms. Dimly you could see the crowds that
lined the street on either side. Vaguely, too, you saw the
faces and stunted figures of the little group of girls she
led. But she, the central figure, stood out among all the
rest. Fanny Brandeis, the artist, and Fanny Brandeis, the
salesman, combined shrewdly to omit no telling detail. The
wrong kind of feet in the wrong kind of shoes; the absurd
hat; the shabby skirt--every bit of grotesquerie was there,
serving to emphasize the glory of the face. Fanny Brandeis'
face, as the figure grew, line by line, was a glorious
thing, too.

She was working rapidly. She laid down her pencil, now, and
leaned back, squinting her eyes critically. She looked
grimly pleased. Her hair was rather rumpled, and her cheeks
very pink. She took up her pen, now, and began to ink her
drawing with firm black strokes. As she worked a little
crow of delight escaped her--the same absurd crow of triumph
that had sounded that day in Winnebago, years and years
before, when she, a school girl in a red tam o' shanter, had
caught the likeness of Schabelitz, the peasant boy, under
the exterior of Schabelitz, the famous.
There sounded a smart little double knock at her door.
Fanny did not heed it. She did not hear it. Her toes were