the marriage of daniel leitzel took place in the fall, and during all the following winter new munich kept up its lively interest in the bride, and discussed freely and constantly her personality, looks, manner, clothes, opinions, and, most impressive of all, her unique style of speech on occasions; it also speculated boldly and with the keenest curiosity as to how she "got on" with danny and her "in-laws."
as the weekly intelligencer had predicted, many "social events" celebrated the marriage. to entertain the bride and groom came to be such a social distinction that people vied with each other in the extravagant elaborateness of their parties; and not to have met mrs. leitzel proved one to be socially obscure.
to the men of new munich it was a "seven days' wonder" that a woman of such charm and distinction should have "tied up" with a man like dan.
"how did a weasel like dan leitzel ever put it over a girl like that? why, he's at least twice her age!"
but the women, noting that the bride's clothes with the exception of her two evening gowns, however graceful and becoming, were home-made, and that though the lace on some of them was real and rare, it was very old, did not wonder so much at the marriage.
"she is certainly making a hit with new munich," was the verdict at first. "isn't she the very dearest thing that ever happened?"
margaret's amiable, sympathetic manner, her simplicity, her occasional drollery, the distinction of her fine breeding, fascinated these people of a different tradition and fibre.
"no wonder danny leitzel looks like another man!" his acquaintances commented. "why, he's taking on flesh! he looks ten years younger! do you notice how spryly he walks? and how radiantly he beams on everybody, the old skinflint! yes, he certainly had his usual luck when he got that young wife of his!"
it was another cause for wonder and widespread comment that the maiden sisters, too, looked brighter and younger since the advent of their brother's bride.
"they're awfully proud of her and of the fuss being made over her and danny! who would have dreamed that miss jennie and miss sadie could get on peaceably with their brother's wife, living in the same house with her! it seems unbelievable."
"oh, wait! she's a new thing just now, but wait! we shall presently see and hear—what we shall see and hear! if they get on peaceably, i'll warrant it's not because miss jennie and miss sadie are angels. it's mrs. danny that's so awfully easy-going they can't quarrel with her. but of course it can't possibly last. if she is easy-going, she isn't a jelly-fish. they're bound to clash after a while. you'll see what you'll see!"
"even the bride herself looks happy," one maiden pensively remarked. "i shouldn't think she would. i couldn't have married dan leitzel."
"you don't know what you might have done if tempted," a friend of the maiden pointedly suggested.
"but she seems to be devoted to danny. she really acts so."
"oh, that's just her southern warmth of manner. don't take that seriously. as if a stunning girl like that could be in love with him!"
"but i heard she was poor and dependent and that danny's devotion and goodness to her made her just adore him! an old man's darling, you know!"
there were only one or two people who, more observant than communicative, noted that mrs. leitzel, though lazily good-humoured and apparently happy, had a strained expression in her large, soft eyes, a veiled, elusive look of trouble, almost of suffering.
meantime, the people of new munich were not more astonished than were daniel's sisters themselves at the relation which they found themselves sustaining toward his wife. it had taken only a few days of association with margaret to disarm them of their stiffness, suspicion, and jealousy of their brother's devotion to her. they found her so surprisingly willing to take second place in her husband's house, so disinclined to usurp any of the prerogatives which they had so long enjoyed (and which they knew most people would think should now be hers) that in spite of many things about her which they could not understand or approve, they presently succumbed to the subtle spell of her magnetism and her docility and became almost as enthusiastic about her as was danny himself.
long and earnest were the discussions they held in secret over her.
"her clothes are so plain," lamented sadie. "you could hardly call 'em such a trussoo, could you? all she's got is just her travelling suit with two silk waists, two house dresses, one afternoon dress, and two evening dresses. and her underclothes ain't fancy like a bride's. when i asked her to show me her wedding underclothes, she said she didn't get any new, she hadn't needed any! to be sure, what she has got is awful fine linen and hand embroidered, but it ain't made a bit fancy and no coloured ribbons at. all plain white," said sadie in a tone of keen disappointment.
"and her evening dresses," said jennie; "she says the lace on 'em she 'inherited.' putting old second-hand lace on your wedding outfit yet! i told her i'd anyhow think she'd buy new for her wedding outfit. and she said, 'but i couldn't afford to buy lace like this. my great-grandmother wore this lace on a ball gown.'"
"she ain't ashamed to say right out she can't afford this and that," said sadie wonderingly.
"well, to be sure, that's just to us, and we're her folks now. she'd know better than to say it outside."
"well, i guess anyhow then!" sadie fervently hoped.
"but it looks as if she didn't have much, don't it?"
"i'm afraid it does." sadie shook her head.
"what i want to know is, did she or didn't she bring danny anything?" jennie worried.
"it's hard to say," sighed sadie.
"i don't like to ask her right out, just yet anyhow. after a while i will mebby," said jennie.
"she's wonderful genteel, the most genteel lady i ever saw," remarked sadie. "and how she speaks her words so pretty! buttah for butter; and haose for house. it sounds grand, don't it?"
"it's awful high-toned," jennie granted. "i wonder what hiram's lizzie will have to say when she sees her once. won't lizzie look common anyhow, alongside of her?"
"well, i guess!"
"hiram will have more jealous feelings than ever when he sees what a genteel lady danny picked out; ain't?"
"yes, anyhow!"
"and that makes something, too, being high-toned that way; it makes near as much as money," said jennie thoughtfully.
"still, i don't believe danny would have married her if she hadn't anything," sadie speculated.
"well, i guess not, too, mebby. i hope not. it's next sabbath we're invited to millerstown to spend the day at hiram's, you mind?" she told sadie; "if only you don't take the cold or have the headache," she added, insisting always upon regarding sadie as an invalid to be coddled.
"you know, jennie, danny always says he has so ashamed for our hiram's common table manners. i guess he won't like it, either, before margaret that hiram eats so common, for all he's a minister."
"yes, well, but supposing she met mom by chance, what would she think? danny better consider of that before he worries over our hiram."
"yes, i guess, too," sadie agreed.
meantime, margaret, during these first months after her marriage, was living through a succession of spiritual upheavals and epochs which, under a calm and even phlegmatic exterior, were completely hidden from those about her.
her earliest impressions in her new and strange environment at the leitzels' home in new munich were confused and bewildering; for so isolated and narrow had her life hitherto been, that vulgarity in any form had never, up to this time, touched or come nigh her, and she did not understand it, did not know how to meet or cope with it.
but the second stage of her experience, as the situation became less confused, more definite, was, in spite of daniel's devotion to her, for which she was grateful, a transitory sense of humiliation, of mortification, that she had married into a family that was "straight-out common"—she, a berkeley. it was probably the first time in her life that she had ever given a thought to the fact that she was a berkeley. but since to a southerner of good family, to be well-born was a detail of inestimable importance, she had naturally assumed that any man whom walter brought into his home and presented to her and hattie must be worthy of that honour. it was on this assumption that so many of daniel's peculiarities had failed to mean to her what she could now see they meant—sheer commonness. why had walter taken it for granted so easily that because a man was a successful and prominent lawyer he was a gentleman? yes, her own sister's husband had let her go so far as to marry into a family of whom he knew either too little or too much!
"i trusted walter so entirely, i didn't even think of questioning him on such a matter!" she reflected with some bitterness upon his willingness to sacrifice her in order to preserve the peace of his own home.
"there are two kinds of lower class people, common people and people who are only just plain," she philosophized. "if daniel's family were just plain, i could take them to my heart and be glad for the broadening experience of knowing and loving them. i could get over my prejudices about blood—i recognize that they are prejudices—and i wouldn't even mind his sisters' peculiarities. but they are not just plain. they are—— oh, my good lord!" she almost moaned, covering her face with her hands.
however, all the experiences of margaret's life had taught her, through very severe discipline, to accept philosophically whatever circumstances fell to her lot and to extract from alien conditions whatever of comfort could possibly be found in them. so, the third stage of the strenuous crisis through which she was passing was more cheerful. she found herself so interested in the novelty of the life and characters about her that it began to seem like the open page of an absorbing story. indeed, so interested did she become, that for a time she forgot to think of it all in its relation to her own life. that phase was destined to be forced upon her later with added poignancy. but for the time being, even the fearfully vulgar taste of daniel's house and its furnishings, the like of which she had never beheld, and sadie's youthful toilettes—her empire gowns, middie blouses with windsor ties, and hats with little velvet streamers down the back—served only to greatly entertain her.
"sadie was always such a fancy dresser that way," jennie would explain with pride. "yes, she's a girl that's wonderful for dress."
jennie's invariable reference to her younger sister as "a girl" seemed intended to carry out the idea of sadie's sixteen-year-old style of dress.
"i suppose one couldn't make sadie understand," thought margaret, "that she'd be better dressed with one frock of good material, simply and suitably made, than with all that huge closet full of cheap trash."
but she was wise enough not to attempt reforms, or even suggestions, in any direction, in her new home.
in view of the fact that daniel's sisters lived here dependent upon him, as margaret supposed, sadie's abundant finery seemed to her rather extravagant. "he's a very indulgent brother," she decided.
walter's wedding gift to her had been a check for fifty dollars, which she was sure he must have borrowed on his life insurance. she was at present using this for pocket money. it was characteristic of her not to give one anxious thought to the time when it would all be spent. she was scarcely aware of the fact that the subject of money had never yet come up between her and daniel, and she would have been amazed indeed to know how often her husband tried in vain to broach the topic which was to him of such paramount importance, and to her so negligible a detail in a life full of interests that had nothing to do with money.
the attitude of daniel's sisters toward him seemed to margaret not by any means the least of the curiosities of her new life: their obsequious admiration of him, their abject obedience to every least wish of his, their minute attention to his physical comforts and to the fussy details of his daily routine, from his morning bath up to his glass of hot milk at bedtime.
"and they've done this all his life! no wonder he's a——"
but she checked, even to her own consciousness, any admission of what she really thought he was.
daniel, meantime, discovering through the many social affairs to which he took his bride that she was so greatly admired by the men of his world as to make them look upon him with envy (and to be looked upon with envy was sweet to his soul), opened up his heart and his purse to the extent of suggesting to his wife and his sisters that they celebrate his marriage and return the lavish hospitality that had been extended to them in new munich by giving a large reception.
it was one saturday afternoon as they all sat together in the "sitting-room" after their midday dinner, daniel's offices being closed on saturday afternoon to give his large staff of clerks a half holiday. jennie had pushed daniel's own easy-chair to the open fire for him, and he was lounging in it luxuriously.
"and i'm going to do it up in style. i'll have a caterer from philadelphia," he announced, to the astonishment of his sisters.
"oh, danny, a caterer yet!" breathed sadie, awestruck.
"it'll come awful high, danny!" jennie warned him.
"i know it will. i know that. but all the same i'm going to do it!" responded daniel heroically.
"well," said jennie, "i hope you'll tell the caterer, danny, not to give us one of these lap-suppers the kind they had at mrs. congressman ocksreider's, you mind. i like to sit up to a table when i eat. mrs. ocksreider's so stout, she hasn't got a lap, and it looked awful inconvenient to her. oh, it was swell enough, to be sure, but you didn't get very full. we didn't overload our stomachs, i can tell you."
"we'll have small tables, then," daniel agreed.
"sadie," jennie suddenly ordered her sister solicitously, "sit out of the window draft or you'll get the cold in your head yet."
sadie obediently pulled her chair away from the window.
"i'm thirsty," daniel announced; and at the word jennie rose.
"i'll fetch you a drink, danny."
in a moment she returned and stood by her brother's chair while he leisurely sipped the water she had brought him. this spectacle, a man's remaining seated while a woman stood, to which margaret was becoming accustomed, had at first seemed to her quite awful.
"and you, margaret," daniel said as he sipped his water, "must have a new dress—gown, as you call it—for the party. you have worn those same two evening dresses of yours to about enough parties, i guess. let sadie help you choose a new one. and get something elegant and showy. i won't mind the cost. sadie, you'll know what she ought to get; her own taste is too plain. i want her to do me credit!" he grinned, returning the empty glass to jennie, who took it away.
"i'll help you pick out just the right thing," responded sadie, eager for the orgy of planning a new evening costume, while margaret, as she glanced at sadie's ill-fitting, gay plaid blouse of cheap silk, made by a cheap seamstress, and at the coquettish patch of black court plaster off her left eye, concealed her amusement at her vision of herself in a garb of her sister-in-law's devising.
"daniel," she suddenly said, wishing to divert the talk from clothes, and curious, also, to "try out" her husband on a certain point, "i'm thirsty."
daniel, not yet very far recovered from the attentive lover stage, jumped up at once to get her a drink, quite as he would have done before their marriage, and margaret smiled as she saw jennie and sadie look shocked at what she knew they felt to be her very unwifely attitude.
"my dears," she told them while daniel was gone, "i've got to try to keep him in training, you spoil him so dreadfully."
"how high dare she go, danny, for her new dress?" sadie inquired when her brother returned with the water.
"well, what do you pay for a party dress?"
"my new white silk cost me sixteen-fifty."
"that's a showy, handsome dress all right. you may spend twenty dollars, margaret," he said magnanimously.
"we'll go downtown right after breakfast on monday morning, margaret," said sadie, "and pick out the goods and take it to mrs. snyder, my dressmaker. she charges five dollars to make a dress, but she gives you your money's worth; she makes them so nice and fancy. your dresses ain't fussed up enough, margaret."
margaret wondered what would be the effect upon them if she told them that just the mere making of one of her "plain" gowns, by a good dressmaker, had cost nearly twice what daniel "allowed" her for the goods, "findings," and making of a new one. but she decided to spare them the shock.
"simple clothes suit me better," she said. "unless i go to a high-priced dressmaker, i can do much better making my gowns myself."
"but i don't begrudge the high price, margaret," urged daniel; "you let sadie's mrs. snyder make you a dress."
"yes," said jennie with decision, "you can't appear among our friends any more, margaret, in such plain-looking dresses as you've been wearing. it would really give me a shamed face if you weren't so—well, even in plain clothes, you're awful aristocratic looking, and you'll look just grand in the dress sadie's mrs. snyder will make you for five dollars."
though margaret was perfectly willing to take a subordinate place in her husband's household, she no more dreamed of his sisters interfering in her personal affairs than she thought of interfering with theirs, so in spite of jennie's authoritative tone, she answered pleasantly: "too bad you don't like my mennonite taste, for you know, i'd love to adopt the 'plain' garb of these mennonite women and girls one sees on the streets on market days. what could be more quaint and fetching than their spotless white caps on their glossy hair? ah, i think they're a sly lot, these mennonite girls. don't tell me they don't know how bewitching they look in their unworldly garb intended to put down woman's natural vanity! so i won't get a new gown just now."
"why not, when danny offers you the money?" asked sadie, astonished, while jennie frowned disapprovingly.
"here," said daniel, taking a bank book and a fountain pen from his pocket, and rapidly making out a check, "you take this, margaret, and let sadie's mrs. snyder make you a nice party dress."
margaret laughed a little as she took the check, feeling it useless to explain to them how impossible it would be to buy with twenty dollars, even at a bargain sale, anything so beautiful as her two gowns made by a skilled and artistic designer and trimmed with her great-grandmother's brussels rose point.
daniel looked chagrined and his sisters rather indignantly surprised that she did not thank him for the money. he thought he was being tremendously generous. but margaret, inasmuch as they had been married two months and this was the first money he had offered her, received it as a matter of course; her husband had, at the altar, endowed her with his "worldly goods" and what was his was hers; that was her quite simple view of their financial relation.
"i don't want to spend this on a gown, daniel," she said to the consternation of her hearers, as she tucked it into the bosom of her blouse, "for i don't need any; the ones i have are really all right, my dear; far better than anything i've seen on any woman in new munich."
"but i gave it to you for a frock!" daniel exclaimed, his eyes bulging. "i want you to have a fancy, dressy frock for our reception."
"my dear," margaret patted his bald head, "you know a lot more about law than about a woman's frocks. you leave that to me."
before he could reply, the one maid of the household entered the room, and presented a card-plate to jennie.
"more callers—what a pile!" said jennie as she took ten cards from the plate.
"yes, and it's only one lady in the parlour settin'!" exclaimed the pennsylvania dutch maid. "it wonders me that she gives me so many tickets!"
"well, would you look, danny! if it ain't miss hamilton!" exclaimed jennie with a contemptuous shrug. "ain't she got nerve!"
"what! well, well! tut, tut, tut!—my stenographer calling on my wife! yi, yi! because she and her parents sent us a little bit of a vase for a wedding gift, she has the presumption to think she can make your acquaintance, my dear!"
"that exquisite little venetian glass vase!" said margaret eagerly. "it's one of the loveliest gifts we received."
"it looks as if it cost fifty cents," commented jennie. "and they're not just to say poor either; her father is the high school principal and her mother's the episcopal church organist."
"but why ten cards," asked daniel, "if she came by herself?"
"her father's and mother's cards as well as her own; and for all of us," explained margaret as she glanced over them.
"and is that the proper way to do?" asked daniel, impressed.
"it is in south carolina; i can't answer for new munich."
"her puttin' on airs like that!" wondered sadie, "when they ain't in society."
margaret rose to go to the parlour. "are you coming?" she asked of jennie and sadie.
"we are not acquainted with our danny's hired clerk," said jennie primly, "and don't wish to be. i'll call the hired girl back and tell her to excuse you, margaret, and us, too."
"no, i want to meet miss hamilton. i've been anxious to make the acquaintance of the giver of that rare little vase; she must be a person of taste. shall i, then, excuse you?" she asked the other two women, moving a step toward the door. but daniel took her hand to detain her. "have yourself excused; i'd rather you did; it's not well to mix business and society. it was bold of miss hamilton to come here, and we must not encourage her to come again."
strangely enough, this sort of a contingency had not arisen before, for the simple reason that on every occasion, hitherto, when people had called whom jennie and sadie considered undesirable acquaintances for her, margaret had happened to be out. they had either just thrown away the cards of such visitors, or had explained to margaret that she must not return their visits. margaret had not discussed the matter with them, but had kept the addresses of every visitor of whom she was informed, intending, of course, to call upon them all as soon as new munich "society" would cease from its siege of entertaining her.
"but, daniel," she patiently answered him, "i'm quite serious in telling you that a person who could select such a thing of beauty as that venetian vase, i'm sure i shall find much more interesting than—than some of the people i've been meeting, kind and hospitable though they've been."
"but it's very bad policy to encourage familiarity in subordinates. she works for me, margaret."
"don't you see, daniel, that's why it behooves me not to be excused to her?" she smiled, withdrawing her hand, patting his cheek, and sailing out of the room.
"but, margaret!" he called after her, only to hear her voice in the room beyond greeting, with her southern cordiality, his hired secretary.
daniel looked the annoyance and astonishment he felt. if she would see miss hamilton, against his expressed wish, she needn't treat her like an equal—actually gush over her. why! hear the two of them laughing and chattering over there in the parlour! she might at least be reserved and on her dignity with people beneath her.
"for goodness' sake, tell your wife, danny," spoke in jennie, voicing his own thought, "not to make herself so friendly and common to everybody. your wife don't have to! she has the right to be a little proud with people. i tell her, still, when callers come, 'to this one you can be as common as you want; but to this one, not so common.' but she don't seem to understand; leastways, she don't listen to me; she's the same to everybody, whether or no. or else she's just as likely as not to make herself common with a person like this miss hamilton and be awful quiet and indifferent-like with mrs. congressman ocksreider and her daughter, or judge miller's family! you better talk to her and tell her what's what."
"it's funny," said daniel, puzzled, "that she wouldn't know that much without being told."
"yes, i think, then!" said jennie, "and her as tony a person as what she seems to be."
"yes, anyhow!" corroborated sadie.
"her being so friendly with everybody," continued jennie, "is likely to make trouble when we come to send out invitations for your grand party. to be sure, the ones she made herself so common with will look to be invited; ain't?"
"but i want the party to be very exclusive, mind!" warned daniel.
"to be sure you do. trust me to see to that," promised jennie.
"will you hear those two in there laughing together like two school-girls!" wondered sadie. "my goodness! and miss hamilton working for you for eight dollars a week!"
"i've had to raise her to ten," said danny ruefully. "a lawyer in lancaster offered her fifteen, and i couldn't let her go, she's too useful; so much better educated than the general run of stenographers. if she didn't prefer to live in new munich with her parents, i'd have to compete with big city prices to keep her."
"is she that smart, danny?" jennie asked, a touch of respect in her tone, her estimate of miss hamilton rising just two dollars' worth. "they say, too, that her father's such a smart high school teacher. yes, they say the school board had to raise his salary, too, to keep him."
"it's very bad," said daniel thoughtfully, "to have people who work for you know how valuable they are to you. miss hamilton knows she's worth money to me and so she gives herself airs—acts sometimes as though she hired me at ten dollars a week!—and then has the presumption to come here and call on my wife! i'd fire her if i could get any one half as good. but she knows she's got the whip-handle. it's much better, much better, for an employee to feel uncertain of his or her place. by the way," he added, drawing a purse from his pocket and taking a dollar from it, "you know we're all to go to millerstown to have dinner at hiram's to-morrow, so you'd better go out this afternoon, girls, and buy some presents for the four children. here's a dollar—that's from margaret and me; and if you each give fifty cents, that will make two dollars: enough to buy a nice little present for each one of them from all of us."
"all right, danny," responded jennie, taking the dollar. "i can get red booties for the baby, a hair ribbon for naomi, a game for zwingli, and a story book for christian. won't they be pleased?"
"and now," said daniel, taking out his watch, "i've got just an hour to spare—let us make out the list of names for our party; for when miss hamilton goes, i'm going to 'phone for an automobile and take margaret out for a little ride, and talk to her about some things."
