panying him to the Young German Shooters' Society ball at
Terrace Garden.

It was one of those simple, entirely and genuinely gay entertainments
that assemble the society of the real New York--the three and a half
millions who work and play hard and live plainly and without pretense,
whose ideals center about the hearth, and whose aspirations are to
retire with a competence early in the afternoon of life, thenceforth
placidly to assist in the prosperity of their children and to have
their youth over again in their grandchildren.

Feuerstein's gaze wandered from face to face among the young women, to
pause at last upon a dark, handsome, strong-looking daughter of the
people. She had coal-black hair that curled about a low forehead. Her
eyes were dreamy and stormy. Her mouth was sweet, if a trifle
petulant. "And who is she?" he asked.

"That's Hilda Brauner," replied Horwitz. "Her father has a
delicatessen in Avenue A. He's very rich--owns three flat-houses.
They must bring him in at least ten thousand net, not to speak of what
he makes in the store. They're fine people, those Brauners; none nicer
anywhere."

"A beautiful creature," said Feuerstein, who was feeling like a prince
who, for reasons of sordid necessity, had condescended to a party in
Fifth Avenue. "I'd like to meet her."

"Certainly," replied Horwitz. "I'll introduce her to you."

She blushed and was painfully ill at ease in presence of his grand and
lofty courtesy--she who had been used to the offhand manners which
prevail wherever there is equality of the sexes and the custom of frank
sociability. And when he asked her to dance she would have refused had
she been able to speak at all. But he bore her off and soon made her
forget herself in the happiness of being drifted in his strong arm upon
the rhythmic billows of the waltz. At the end he led her to a seat and
fell to complimenting her--his eyes eloquent, his voice, it seemed to
her, as entrancing as the waltz music. When he spoke in German it was
without the harsh sputtering and growling, the slovenly slurring and
clipping to which she had been accustomed. She could answer only with
monosyllables or appreciative looks, though usually she was a great
talker and, as she had much common sense and not a little wit, a good
talker. But her awe of him, which increased when she learned that he
was on the stage, did not prevent her from getting the two main
impressions he wished to make upo