Margaret's instinct for self-preservation, being rapidly educated along
new lines since her marriage, closed her lips in the presence of Jennie
and Sadie upon the great delight she found in her new acquaintance, her
husband's secretary; for though the standards of value which the
Leitzels held as to most things in life had at first seemed to her
incomprehensible, she was of late beginning to have a glimmering
understanding of them. So, upon returning to the sitting-room after
Miss Hamilton's call, she repressed any expression of her happiness,
and not until she and Daniel were alone in the automobile which he had
hired this afternoon for her pleasure, and incidentally for his own,
did she speak of it. She had not yet learned the necessity of hiding
from him, also, almost everything that she felt and thought.
"This is a red letter day for me, Daniel. I've found a friend! I've
never had an intimate girl friend--oh! but I've yearned for one! Of
all the many people I've met since I came here, there hasn't been one
except that Miss Mary Aucker, who has since gone to Boston for the
winter, whose society I'd prefer to that of a book or solitude. I'm
not naturally a very good 'mixer,' I'm afraid, but in ten minutes Miss
Hamilton and I--well, we simply found each other, deep down where we
both live! It's such a novel and wonderful experience to me!" she
softly exclaimed, her eyes shining. "It's going to give me the
greatest happiness I've ever known!"
"The greatest happiness you've ever known! Why, Margaret----"
"I mean that I've ever known with a woman," she said soothingly.
"But, my dear!" he exclaimed, "what can you be thinking of? You can't
make a friend of _my secretary_!"
"If she is a lady?"
"But she isn't. They don't go anywhere, these Hamiltons!"
"They are a cultured New England family, Daniel, and if they don't go
into society here, it is probably because they don't want to. I'm sure
I can't imagine why they _should_ want to. I don't mean, dear," she
quickly added, not at all sincerely, "to cast any reflection upon your
New Munich society; I'm speaking of society in general. It is rather
unsatisfactory, isn't it? I wouldn't give up the friendship I'm going
to have with Miss Hamilton for all the rest of New Munich society, I
assure you."
"But you must give it up! Why, my dear, the Hamiltons are _renters_!"
"'Renters?'"
"Yes, renters!"
"What are 'renters?'"
"You know what I mean--they don't own the house they live in, they rent
it."
"Oh!" Margaret fell back laughing against the seat of the car. "Of
course if I had known that, Daniel, I shouldn't have found Miss
Hamilton congenial, sympathetic, and companionable. Oh, Daniel!" she
gasped with laughing.
But Daniel's sense of humour was not developed.
"You must be on your guard more, my dear," he gravely warned her, "or
you will be getting yourself involved most uncomfortably with
troublesome people. Do let Jennie and Sadie be your guides as to whom
you should cultivate here and whom keep at a proper distance."
"Jennie and Sadie be my--select my friends for me?"
"Instruct you as to those _among_ whom you may select for yourself," he
amended it. "They know New Munich and you don't."
"And they," thought Margaret wonderingly, "think themselves 'above' a
cultured, sophisticated, well-bred girl like Miss Hamilton--they!"
"But, Daniel," she asked, genuinely puzzled, "that nice little woman
that called yesterday, that I liked so much, said her husband was a
grocer. I confess it rather shocked me. But you all seemed to approve
of _her_. In New Munich is a grocer better than a teacher?"
"He's a wholesale grocer, which makes a vast difference, of course."
"Does it? And was the drygoods person who was with her also wholesale?"
"Mrs. Frantz? No, but she's rich, very rich. They own their handsome
home at the head of our block. Listen, Margaret! While you were in
the parlour with Miss Hamilton, Jennie and Sadie helped me make up the
list for our party, and even I myself could not have discriminated more
astutely than they did (Jennie especially) as to whom we ought to
invite and whom we ought not. On Monday I'll have one of my office
clerks address the envelopes for the invitations on a typewriter."
"Oh, my God, Daniel! You can't send typewritten invitations!"
"For goodness' sake, Margaret, cut out _swearing_! I'd be horribly
mortified if any one heard you!"
Margaret was silent.
Daniel turned to glance at her uneasily, fearing he had offended her,
but she was red with suppressed laughter and as she met his eye it
broke forth in a little squeal.
"Oh, Daniel," she sighed, "swearing isn't as bad as slang, dear. I'd
much rather hear you say 'Damn it' than 'cut it out.'"
She looked so pretty in her sable furs, another inheritance from an
ancestor, that, the automobile being covered, he seized her face in his
two hands and held his lips to hers for a long minute.
"Daniel," she said when he at last released her, "remind me to look
over the list before you send the invitations. I may want to add some
names."
"I don't think you will, dear. We drew up the list very carefully."
"I'll glance over it."
"But, Margaret," he firmly insisted, "the list is complete as it
stands. You can't add any name to it that would not be objectionable
to my sisters and me."
"I understand that the party is to be a large general affair, not small
and exclusive? In that case, you know, we shall have to invite every
one who has called and sent us gifts."
"Impossible! Why, our butcher sent us a gilt-framed Snow-Scene! and
Sadie's dressmaker a souvenir spoon!"
"Then at least we must invite every one who has called on me."
"By no means. Wait until you have lived here long enough to have
gotten your bearings and you'll see how right Jennie and Sadie and I
are in drawing the line so carefully."
Margaret wisely desisted from further discussion of the matter, though
she felt troubled by her conviction that she would certainly not find
on that list the names of the few women of the town who had really
interested her and who were probably "renters" or self-supporting or
something else which, by the Leitzel standard, would class them with
"dogs and sorcerers." But it was she and Daniel who were giving the
party, and even though Jennie and Sadie did keep house for them, she
was of course the nominal mistress of her husband's home and
responsible for the courtesy or discourtesy extended to their
acquaintances; and she did not like the idea of being made to appear a
petty snob in the eyes of the few people of New Munich for whose
opinion of her she cared. But what could she do about it?
"The people they seem to approve of have been the most vulgar who have
called on me," she reflected. "And the few persons of breeding and
education I've met here they have flouted. Yet I recognize the
delicacy of their position--Jennie's and Sadie's--living here in their
brother's house and dependent upon him. I don't want to assert myself
in a way to make them feel their dependence. What can I do?"
"Another thing, Margaret," said Daniel in a tone of authority, "I want
to ask you not to make yourself common with people beneath you."
"Make myself 'common?'"
"Why, you are as common with my secretary as you are with Mrs.
Ocksreider or Mrs. and Miss Miller!"
"I'm 'common?'"
"Don't you think you are?"
"Well, in Charleston we weren't considered just to say common people,
Daniel, though perhaps we were over-estimated."
"Good heavens, Margaret, I don't mean that you _yourself_ are common; I
certainly wouldn't have married you if I had thought that. I mean you
make yourself--well, too democratic. That's what I mean, too
democratic."
"The prerogative of the well-born, Daniel, who don't feel the
_necessity_ for snobbishness. Have you fixed the date for the party?"
"Yes, the twenty-second; three weeks from yesterday. I'll have the
house decorated by a Lancaster florist and I'll have a caterer from
Philadelphia." He repeated with relish his astonishing intention.
"But, Daniel, are you sure we can afford all that?"
He laughed exultantly. "Well, my dear, I've never given a large party
and I'm going to impress the town! It will be the swellest thing that
was ever given here! Why shouldn't it be? I can afford it--that is,"
he pulled himself up, "I can afford it _once_ in a while, and," he
added with feeling, "I'm celebrating the happiest event of my whole
life. You're worth all that it will cost, Margaret!"
"Thanks!"
"You're welcome, my dear."
"We must invite your step-mother to the party, Daniel."
A slight start expressed Daniel's disturbed surprise at this unexpected
suggestion.
"She's too old and too--well, too unworldly."
He winced from the discovery that Margaret must some time make, that
his step-mother was a Mennonite, talked Pennsylvania Dutch, was wholly
uneducated and, in short, a disgrace to the Leitzel family.
"We must send her a card, Daniel, whether she comes or not."
"No, no; she might take a notion _to_ come!"
"But that would be lovely! I am so fond of old ladies. Why do you say
'No?'"
"I don't want her 'round!" he snapped fretfully. "Don't send her an
invitation! She lives only fifteen miles from here and I do believe
she'd _come_ if she were invited, she's so proud of being related to
us! You see, Margaret," he added, preparing the way a bit, "she's not
exactly our equal, I'm sorry to tell you."
"Then," thought Margaret, "she's undoubtedly a very superior woman!"
"Daniel!" she suddenly proposed, "if she lives only fifteen miles away,
let's motor out to see her."
"We haven't time," said Daniel shortly.
"Some other time then? I'd like to meet her."
"Perhaps."
"Won't she be at Hiram's to-morrow at the family party at Millerstown?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because Hiram won't invite her. We have very little to do with her,
my dear, except to give her her home."
"_You_ do that?" She wondered at the number of people he supported.
"Well, she lives in our old home near our coal lands. We don't charge
her any rent."
"I'm going out to see her some time, Daniel. Since you don't care to
visit her, I'll take Miss Hamilton. I'd like to see your coal lands
and your old home."
Daniel looked apoplectic. "Margaret!" he gasped. "Listen to me!
Don't speak to any one of my step-mother! Hardly any one knows we have
one and we don't want them to know it."
"Gracious! Why not?"
"We're ashamed of her, Margaret. She's not a lady, though I don't see
why that should reflect on us, since she isn't a blood relation. And
as to Miss Hamilton, haven't I made it clear to you that it would
humiliate me unbearably to have my wife seen in company with my
stenographer?"
"Oh, but, Daniel, my dear, because her family are 'renters?' There,
there," she patted him, "don't worry about me. I'm twenty-five years
old, you know, and am surely competent to choose my own friends. And
it's better to be renters than rotters. Let us go home, now, will you?
It's getting late, and I'm cold--and hungry. Jennie promised us
buckwheat cakes for supper. Tell me all about your brother Hiram's
family," she added when Daniel had ordered the chauffeur to turn home.
"How many children has he? I'll be so glad to get some children into
my arms again--I'm so awfully homesick for Hattie's babies!"
There was a little catch in her voice and Daniel answered
sympathetically: "I'd like to see Hattie's babies again myself! They
certainly are nice little children--the most aristocratic looking
children, Margaret, I ever saw. I hope," he lowered his voice, "that
_our_ children will be as aristocratic looking."
Margaret closed her eyes for an instant as though to shut out some
things she did not wish to see.
"How many children?" she repeated after a moment.
"Four: Zwingli, Naomi, Christian, and Daniel. Daniel, the baby, is my
namesake of course. You see, Hiram had about decided I wasn't going to
marry and that having no children of my own, I'd do well by my
namesake. But," Daniel chuckled, "I fooled him, didn't I?"
"Do you like his wife?"
"Oh, yes, he did very well, very well indeed. Lizzie's worth thirty
thousand dollars."
He paused expectantly. Here was Margaret's chance to speak up and tell
him what she was worth.
"If she's worth that much," was Margaret's comment, "she certainly
ought to be all wool and a yard wide. But I asked whether you liked
her."
"Why, yes, she's a good wife," returned Daniel, disappointed, his tone
dejected. _Why_ couldn't he make Margaret talk property? "Hiram
married the richest woman in Millerstown. And she's a very capable and
economical woman, too. You'll hear my brother preach to-morrow," he
added with pride, cheering up a bit. "He's a fine preacher. So
considered in Millerstown. If he had gone into the ministry younger,
he'd have made his mark in his profession just as I have done in the
law; but he was nearly thirty when he began to study. Yes," said
Daniel as the car drew up at their door, "you'll hear a great sermon
when you hear my brother Hiram preach."