germs were discovered, when women's skirts trailed and
flounced behind them in a cloud of dust. One of her
scandalized neighbors (Mrs. Nathan Pereles, it was) had
taken her aside to tell her that no decent woman would dress
that way.

"Next year," said Mrs. Brandeis, "when you are wearing one,
I'll remind you of that." And she did, too. She had worn
shirtwaists with a broad "Gibson" shoulder tuck, when other
Winnebago women were still encased in linings and bodices.
Do not get the impression that she stood for emancipation,
or feminism, or any of those advanced things. They had
scarcely been touched on in those days. She was just an
extraordinarily alert woman, mentally and physically,
with a shrewd sense of values. Molly Brandeis never could
set a table without forgetting the spoons, or the salt, or
something, but she could add a double column of figures in
her head as fast as her eye could travel.

There she goes, running off with the story, as we were
afraid she would. Not only that, she is using up whole
pages of description when she should be giving us dialogue.
Prospective readers, running their eyes over a printed page,
object to the solid block formation of the descriptive
passage. And yet it is fascinating to weave words about
her, as it is fascinating to turn a fine diamond this way
and that in the sunlight, to catch its prismatic hues.
Besides, you want to know--do you not?--how this woman who
reads Balzac should be waiting upon you in a little general
store in Winnebago, Wisconsin?