into the store bursting with news or plans, but they had
learned to control their eagerness. This, though, was no
ordinary news that had blanched Theodore's face. At sight
of the three, Mrs. Brandeis quietly turned her boiler
purchaser over to Pearl and came forward from the rear of
the store.

"Oh, Mother!" cried Theodore, an hysterical note in his
voice. "Oh, Mother!"

And in that moment Molly Brandeis knew. Emil Bauer
introduced them, floridly. Molly Brandeis held out her
hand, and her keen brown eyes looked straight and long into
the gifted Russian's pale blue ones. According to all rules
he should have started a dramatic speech, beginning with
"Madame!" hand on heart. But Schabelitz the great had
sprung from Schabelitz the peasant boy, and in the process
he had managed, somehow, to retain the simplicity which was
his charm. Still, there was something queer and foreign in
the way he bent over Mrs. Brandeis's hand. We do not bow
like that in Winnebago.

"Mrs. Brandeis, I am honored to meet you."

"And I to meet you," replied the shopkeeper in the black
sateen apron.

"I have just had the pleasure of hearing your son play,"
began Schabelitz.