In spite of the forbearance which Margaret felt she had exercised in her desire to be scrupulously considerate of Daniel and his sisters in everything pertaining to the party, the night of this much-advertised "social event" found her in serious disfavour not only with her sisters-in-law, but with her husband himself; first, because of her persistence in ignoring their dictation as to the sort of gown she should wear; secondly, their discovery that she was taking daily walks with Miss Hamilton; for though Margaret would not stoop to any secrecy as to her relation with Daniel's secretary, yet she had not gone out of her way to publish it, and so the walks had been going on for some time before her three monitors learned of them; thirdly, the exception they had taken to her telling some callers, by whose patronage they felt honoured, that she could not afford a new set of furs! Mrs. Ocksreider had spoken admiringly of the furs she had seen Margaret wearing one day and had asked where she had bought them, and Margaret had replied that she had never bought any furs in her life; that she had always been too poor (Danny's wife admitting poverty!), and that these furs had been her grandmother's!—telling Mrs. Ocksreider, of all people, that she wore her grandmother's old clothes!

But Mrs. Ocksreider's reply had been puzzling to Jennie and Sadie:

"Oh, but my dear Mrs. Leitzel, to have had a grandmother who wore sable! It ought to admit you to the D.A.R's! No wonder you flaunt them and refuse to buy new ones!"

Then Margaret had further mortified them before this same formidable social leader of New Munich by refusing her invitation to join the Women's Auxiliary of the Episcopal Church, which, as Jennie and Sadie well knew, was made up of New Munich's "leading society ladies"; so what was their horror to hear Margaret reply, "It's very charitable of you to fancy that I'd be of the least use to you. But I've always hated Women's Auxiliaries!" And she said it with such a musical drawl that Mrs. Ocksreider, instead of showing how offended she must be, had laughed as though she found it funny. But the idea of saying you hated Women's Auxiliaries! It was next thing to saying that you hated the Bible! Never had Jennie and Sadie experienced such a painful half-hour as that of this call.

Fourthly, Daniel's sisters had at last discovered, through persistent prying, that his wife did not have an independent income; and Margaret, her wits sharpened by her new environment to recognize things at first unthinkable to her, saw that this discovery made Jennie and Sadie feel more free than ever to dictate to her and interfere with her liberty.

All these little episodes combining to bring upon her the displeasure of the household, the night of the party found her in a not very cheerful frame of mind, though the deep satisfaction that was hers in the great friendship that had come into her life, the most vital human relation that she had ever known, made it impossible for these smaller things to disturb her fundamentally, as otherwise they might have done.

There had been one event of that day that had somewhat brightened for her the gloom of the home atmosphere: a belated wedding-gift had come from Daniel's step-mother—a patchwork quilt—accompanied by a letter addressed to Daniel and his wife, written for the old woman by the district school teacher.

"'It's a very humble present I am sending you,'" Daniel had read the letter aloud at the breakfast table. "'But it's the work of my old hands, dear children, the last I'll ever do—and the love of my heart went into every stitch of it. I was so proud that you sent me such a notice of your wedding; to remember your old mother, Danny, when you were so happy yourself. I've been working on the quilt ever since I got the notice about the wedding already, and now I'd like so well to see your wife, Danny. I'll try, if I am strong enough, to take the train in, one of these days, and see you both. I'll come back the same day so as not to make any of you any extra work or trouble. I would like to see the lady you married, Danny, before I die, and give her an old woman's wishes for a happy, useful life with my good son that I am so proud of. I wish I could live long enough to see your first baby, Danny, but I guess it won't be many months any more before I must go to my long home.'"

"Yes, that's always the way she talks—she 'hasn't long to live' just to work on our feelings so as to make us give her more!" Jennie commented. "She has no need to come in here to see Margaret. She makes herself very bold to offer to. And she can't spare the car fare, little as what she has to go on. What's Margaret to her anyhow? And she's likely to be too feeble to get back if she comes in. Then we'd have her on our hands yet!"

But Margaret had spent an hour of the morning in writing to Mrs. Leitzel, acknowledging her gift, telling her how glad she would be to see one who had done so much for Daniel when he was a boy. For their step-mother's self-sacrificing devotion to them all in their childhood had been made known to Margaret through many an unwitting, significant remark dropped in her presence. She concluded her letter:


I am coming out to see you very soon, certainly some day next week. Daniel will bring me if he has time. If not, I'll go myself. Until then; with my heartfelt thanks for the work of your dear hands, which I shall use with pride and with grateful thoughts of you,

I am your affectionate daughter,
    MARGARET BERKELEY LEITZEL.


All that day, through the constant little rasping antagonisms which Margaret, despite her good intentions, seemed unable to avert in any intercourse between herself and the Leitzels, she felt that consolatory bit of kindness and good will which had come to her from the old woman in the country. And when she stood at night with her husband and his sisters to receive their guests (Sadie in pink satine) the friendly spirit of her aged mother-in-law was with her still in the background of her consciousness, softening the light of her eyes and making human the perfunctory smile of her lips as she repeated her conventional formula of greeting over and over; so that people marvelled at the apparent continued tranquillity of this incongruously assorted household.

When later in the evening Margaret was free to move about among her guests, Daniel's cold displeasure with her was greatly modified as he witnessed again to-night, as on many previous occasions, how attractive she undoubtedly was to the men of his world. His uncannily keen little eyes read in the faces of his male guests, as they approached and talked with Margaret, the covetousness they felt for this rare possession of his. No acquisition of all his acquisitive career had ever given him a more delectable joy than his realization of the worth, in other men's eyes, of his charming wife.

Had he overheard the view of her which was ventilated, though surreptitiously, by some of the guests over their supper, his satisfaction might have been somewhat modified.

"I think she's a scream!" declared Myrtle Deibert to the group at her table. "Did you hear what she said to me as we were leaving the Country Club dance last Wednesday evening, when I remarked to her, 'Your husband is so awfully in love with you, Mrs. Leitzel; just see how he is beaming on you from clear across the room!' 'Scowling at me, you mean,' she corrected me. 'Don't you hear our taxicab registering out there while I linger to talk to you?"

This anecdote was met with a shout of laughter, the point of which would certainly have remained obscure to Daniel Leitzel.

"Of course you all heard of her telling mother," said Miss Ocksreider, "that she hated Women's Auxiliaries? And that she wore her grandmother's old furs because she couldn't afford to buy new ones? Mother says"—she lowered her voice and the group at the table closed in a bit closer to catch her words—"that it was a perfect circus to see the consternation of Miss Jennie and Miss Sadie when she said she was poor. Isn't it queer how they are so proud of their money and yet so afraid to spend it?"

"Did you hear," inquired Mrs. Eshelman, "what Mrs. Leitzel said to me last Sunday after church when I............