It was not until the hour for leaving Millerstown, when Margaret was taken by her hostess to an upstairs' bedroom to rearrange her hair before starting, that she and Hiram's wife were given an opportunity for a word together. What, then, was her chagrin to have Lizzie at once take up her husband's eulogistic harangue where he had left it off.

"Daniel and Jennie and Sadie always say their New Munich preacher seems so slow and uninteresting after they've heard Hiram. I guess you'll think, too, next Sunday, their minister's a poor preacher towards what Hiram is."

"I don't go to church every Sunday. To tell you the truth, Lizzie, I'm not awfully fond of sermons."

"Oh, ain't you? I do like a good sermon, the kind Hiram preaches."

"You never get tired of them?"

"Not of Hiram's," said Lizzie, shocked.

"Of course not of Hiram's," Margaret hastily concurred.

"Does Danny insist you go along to the U. B. Church, or do you attend the Episcopal?"

"The Episcopalians are trying to gather me into their fold and Daniel seems to want me to go there."

"It's so much more tony than at the U. B. Church," nodded Lizzie understandingly. "Yes, Danny often said already that if he hadn't a brother that is a U. B. preacher, he'd join to the Episcopals. But it wouldn't look nice for him to leave the U. B's when Hiram's minister of the U. B. Church, would it?"

"It wouldn't look nice for him to leave it for the other reason you mentioned."

"That the Episcopals are so tony that way? Well, but Danny thinks an awful lot of that—if a thing is tony or not. Don't you, too? You look as if you did."

"The word isn't in my vocabulary, Lizzie. Let me have another look at the baby before I go, won't you?"

"He looks like Hiram—ain't?" said the mother fondly as they stood beside the crib in her bedroom and gazed down upon the sleeping infant. "I hope he gives as smart a man as what his father is."

"But, Lizzie, don't you think the room is too close for him?" Margaret gasped, loosening the fur at her throat in the stifling atmosphere of the chamber.

"Yes," Lizzie whispered, "but Jennie and Sadie are so old-fashioned that way, they think it's awful to have fresh air at a baby. When they go, I open up."

"But," asked Margaret, surprised, "why do you have to be 'old-fashioned' because they are?"

"Hush—sh! They're coming upstairs to get their coats and hats. A person darsent go against them, especially Jennie. Haven't you found that out yet? I've been wondering how you were getting on with them; they'll want to boss you so!"

"Oh, I was bossed for nine years by the uncle with whom I lived, so I've learned how to—I'm used to it," she judiciously returned.

"Do you think you can stick it out with them?" Lizzie whispered. "Don't you think mebby one of these days they'll go too far and you'll answer them back? And I guess they often bragged to you already, didn't they—how they never get over an insult?"

"I trust I shall never insult them!"

"Well, I'm as peaceable as most," said Lizzie, "but I often felt glad already that we live a little piece away from Jennie and Sadie, though I know I oughtn't to say it.'

"But I still don't see, Lizzie, why you keep this room air-tight because they don't like fresh air," said Margaret, puzzled. "Do you mean you'd rather damage your baby than have them quarrel with you?"

"Well, I open up as soon as they go. You see if they ever get mad at me, they'd cut our children out of their will."

"Their will? I thought Daniel supported them."

Lizzie stared incredulously. "Danny supported them?" she repeated hoarsely. "Och, my souls! You thought that! As if he would!"

Lizzie looked so contemptuous of Margaret's intelligence that the latter realized their opinion of each other's brilliancy was mutual.

"But," Margaret argued, "Daniel would have to support them if they were penniless. They are too old to support themselves."

"They have their own good incomes this long time already," stated Lizzie. "Do you mean to say," she asked wonderingly, "that you thought they hadn't anything and yet you didn't mind Daniel's keeping them at his house with you there?"

"Why should that make any difference to me—their 'having' anything?"

"Say!" said Lizzie, her dull eyes wide open. "I always heard how in the South it gives easy-going people, but I never thought they would be that easy-going!"

"Suppose your husband wanted his sisters to live here," Margaret asked curiously, "you would not consent to it? You'd oppose Hiram, would you? I can't seem to see you doing that, Lizzie."

"But Hiram wouldn't want Jennie and Sadie to live here! He'd know better. He'd know that, peaceable as I am, I couldn't hold out with them; and to be sure, Hiram and I would both feel awful bad to have them get down on us. Why, they've got, anyhow, a hundred thousand dollars apiece!"

"And wear near-seal coats," said Margaret thoughtfully, "and rhinestone rings! How queer!"

"Yes, ain't their coats grand? They paid fifty dollars apiece for them! Maybe Danny will get you one like them some time."

"God forbid! I'd get a divorce if he did! Come, Lizzie, don't you be a coward—let some air into this room. I'll stand by you and take your part!" she said, holding up her muff as if it were a revolver and aiming toward the next room, in which they could hear the voices of Jennie and Sadie. "Advance at your peril!" she dramatically addressed the closed door between the two rooms.

Lizzie stared in dumb wonder and slowly shook her head. "No, I darsent get Jennie mad at me. Wait till you have a baby once and you will see how they'll want to tell you the way to raise it. You'll have to mind them if you want your children to inherit from them."

"Oh, Lizzie, it doesn't pay to sell one's soul for a mess of pottage!"

Scarcely had she spoken when she looked for Lizzie to respond, "You married Danny!" But this bright retort did not apparently occur to Lizzie, for she only stared at Margaret dumbly.

"Well," thought Margaret, "of course a woman who considered Hiram a prize wouldn't think Daniel needed to be apologized for."

"Lizzie," she changed the subject abruptly, "have you ever seen your husband's step-mother?"

"Once or twice or so, yes."

"I've been in New Munich two months and have not yet met her, though, you know, she lives only fifteen miles away."

"Yes, well, but we don't associate with her much. She's very plain and common that way, and Jennie and Sadie are so proud and high-minded, you know. They're ashamed of their step-mother."

"And you, Lizzie, are you ashamed of her?"

"Oh, well, me, I'm not so proud that way. But Hiram he would not like for me to take up with her, he feels it so much that they have to leave her live rent free in their old home when she ain't their own mother; but Daniel and the girls won't put her to the poorhouse for fear it would make talk, and that wouldn't do, you see, Daniel being such a consistent church member and Hiram a minister. She used to come here to see us once in a while and Hiram used to be ashamed to walk with her to the depot when she would go away, because she is a Mennonite and dresses in the plain garb, and it looks so for a United Brethren minister to walk through the town with a Mennonite. People would have asked him, next time they saw him, who she was. So he used to make Naomi walk with her to the depot. Naomi didn't like it either, she was afraid her girl friends might laugh at her grandmother. But her father............