Daniel Leitzel's marriage had revealed to him a trait in himself of which he had never before been conscious, a trait which no circumstances of his life, hitherto, had roused into action; he discovered, through his love for Margaret, that he could be intensely jealous. Any least bit of her bestowed otherwhere than upon himself was sure to arouse in his heart this most painful emotion. He was jealous of her passion for books; of her friendship for Catherine Hamilton; of her devotion to the twins; and now, to-day, of her evidently chummy relation with her brother-in-law. It was, then, not only his eagerness to get down to real business with Walter Eastman that made him hurry through his office work and get home an hour earlier than usual, but it was also the uncomfortable jealousy he felt for Eastman, together with a return, during the afternoon, of the vague suspicion Eastman's rambling, enigmatical remarks at luncheon had roused in his mind, that goaded him.

The fact was that some things Walter had said, as they kept recurring to Daniel, were coming to have a sinister significance.

To his keen disappointment and chagrin, however, he found, when he got home, that neither his wife nor their guest was in the house.

Seeking out the very capable maid Margaret had succeeded in securing, he discovered her in a state of sulky indignation that would scarcely vouchsafe to him a civil or intelligible answer to his inquiries.

"Where is Mrs. Leitzel, Amanda?"

"I don't know where your wife's at. She went out with that fellah," the girl crossly replied.

"'Fellah?'" repeated Daniel, indignant in his turn at what, even in a New Munich servant, seemed very rude familiarity.

"The fellah you're eatin' and sleepin' here," elucidated Amanda.

"Did she take the twins with her?"

"No, sir, she did not; she left 'em in my charge!"

"Why, then, are you not with them?" Daniel asked in quick anxiety.

"I was with 'em till them two women come in here interferin'!"

"Two women? Ah, my sisters! Are they here? Where are they?"

"Out there on the porch wakin' up them two babies your wife left asleep, with me in charge of 'em! If them women hadn't of been two of them to one of me, they wouldn't of got the chanct to wake up them twinses, you bet you!"

Daniel banged the kitchen door spitefully and started for his sisters, his sore and lacerated soul crying out for the sympathy, the consolation their own aggrieved spirits would offer to his wrongs and worries at the hands of a wife who, owing him everything, seemed to find her chief occupation in irritating and thwarting him.

He found Jennie and Sadie bending solicitously over the twins, who, roused from their regular sleep, were wailing fretfully.

"Yes, Danny, no wonder your poor babies cry!" Jennie exclaimed as he appeared. "All alone out here in the cold, on a day like this yet! Yes, this is where we found 'em when we come in! This is where you can find 'em most any time!"

"We saw Margaret start out walking with a strange young man, Danny," Sadie explained, "and we come right over to see whatever had she done with these poor babies; and this is where we found them—alone out here in the cold."

"They wasn't alone, no such a thing!" Amanda shouted from the doorway whither she had followed Daniel. "I was right in here with my eye on 'em every minute, like Missus give me my orders before she went out a'ready! I'm a trustworthy person, I'd like you to know, if I am a poor workin' girl, and I ain't takin' no insults!"

"Nobody is blaming you," Daniel snapped back at her.

"Yes, they are, too! These here two women come in here and begun orderin' me round like as if they was hirin' me! I take my orders from one Missus, not from three!"

"We told her to bring the coach indoors and she flatly refused!" cried Jennie.

"My orders," said Amanda, folding her arms and standing at defiance, "was to leave 'em out. When Missus tells me to bring 'em in, I'll bring 'em in. Not till."

"Amanda," said Daniel impressively, "these ladies are my sisters and when they tell you to do a thing, you must do it."

"Do they hire me and pay me my wages?"

"I hire you and pay you your wages."

"Then have I got four bosses yet at this here place? Not if I know it!"

"Take this coach into the house!" ordered Daniel.

"When Missus tells me to. See?"

"Danny," Sadie offered a suggestion, "leave me take the babies over to our house while their mother is away. The idea of her going off like this and leaving these poor infant twins in the care of a hired girl that she ain't had but a week and don't know anything about! Don't it beat all!"

"I'd thank you not to pass no insinyations against my moral character!" Amanda retorted. "If them twinses own mother could trust 'em to me, I guess it's nobody else's business to come in here interferin'. I wasn't told, when I took this place, that I'd be up against a bunch like this, tryin' to order me round and passin' insults at me!"

"That will do, Amanda," said Daniel with dignity. "Go out to your kitchen."

Amanda flounced away, as Sadie wheeled the baby-coach down the paved garden path to the sidewalk, followed by anxious cautions from Jennie to "go slow" and not strain her back pushing that heavy coach.

"You poor Danny!" Jennie commiserated with him as they together entered the parlour. "The way Margaret uses you, it most makes me sick! Even her hired girl she teaches to disrespect you! Ain't?"

"My life with Margaret is not exactly a 'flowery bed of ease,'" Daniel ruefully admitted.

"If only you hadn't of been so hasty to get married already, Danny! You could of done so much better than what you did!"

"But with all Margaret's faults," Daniel retorted, his pride of possession pricked by the form of Jennie's criticism, "she's the most aristocratic lady I ever met."

"Oh, well, but I don't know about that either, Danny. It seems to me she has some wonderful common ways. I never told you how one day when our hired girl was crying with a headache, Margaret went and put her arm around her yet and called her 'my dear,' and made her lay down till she rubbed her head for her! I told her afterward, she could be good to Emmy without making herself that common with her."

"And what did she say?"

"Och, she just laughed. You know how easy she can laugh. At most anything she can fetch a silly laugh."

Jennie walked into the sitting-room as she talked, inspecting Margaret's makeshift arrangements to conceal the gapes caused by the removal of the furniture which was hers and Sadie's.

"I'm awful sorry, Danny, that you'll have the expense of new furniture, when if Margaret had treated us right, we never would have left you. And the very day you can make her pass her promise that she'll act right to us, we'll be right back."

"I'll never get her to," Daniel pouted. "She's too glad you're gone."

"'Glad!'" echoed Jennie, horrified at the idea that her act of vengeance in her sudden departure with her things an act s............