Her Husband's Purse

by Helen Reimensnyder Martin

He was beginning to feel a little nervous at the thought of his sisters. Jennie, especially, would not like it that he was going ahead and getting married without consulting her. Of course, she and Sadie would both see, as soon as they came to know Margaret, that he had, even without their help, "struck a bonanza" in getting such a wife; so sweet-tempered and unselfish, so lovely looking, so healthy, such "a perfect lady," so "refined," except when she said "damn" and "devilish." He must warn her not to forget herself before his sisters—they'd never get over the shock. He had no doubt that eventually Jennie and Sadie would be as delighted with his "choice" as he was himself. He had told them so in his letter to them that day, assuring them that they would find his bride possessed of every quality they had always insisted upon in the girl he made his wife.

It did seem strange not to be able to tell them what Margaret's fortune was. He knew how eager they must be to know. He was beginning to feel very restive himself at not being enlightened on that score.

"Funny how I can't bring myself to ask her about it!" he wondered at himself for the hundredth time. "But she seems so disinterested in her love for me, how can I seem less so in mine for her? It would not look well!"

"Harriet wants you to draw up your list," Margaret here reminded him, "for the wedding announcements; she'd like to have it to-day."

"Harriet wants—— Is she running this wedding?" he asked suspiciously.

"Yes, quite so. You and she and I have got to address envelopes all day to-morrow, you know."

"Very well. I have already made out my list. It took a good deal of careful and thoughtful discrimination," he said, drawing a document from his pocket and unfolding it, "though not nearly so much as it would if I were being married in New Munich and having a large wedding. Mere announcements—one doesn't have to draw the line so carefully, you know, as in the case of invitations to one's house."

"'Draw the line?'" repeated Margaret questioningly; for social caste in South Carolina, being less fluid than in Pennsylvania, her family for generations had scarcely even rubbed against people of any other status than its own; and the gradations and shades of social difference with which Daniel had wrestled in making his list was something quite outside her experiences.

"Well, you see, every one we send announcements to," Daniel elucidated his meaning, "is bound to call on you; only too glad of the chance. And, naturally, you don't want undesirable people calling on you. If you didn't return their calls, you would make enemies of them; and while I am so fortunately situated that that would not make any material difference to us, still it is better to avoid making enemies if possible."

"But—I don't understand. How do you happen to have acquaintances that are 'undesirable,' and in what sense undesirable—so much so as to make it awkward to have to return their calls?"