"They're awfully proud of her and of the fuss being made over her and Danny! Who would have dreamed that Miss Jennie and Miss Sadie could get on peaceably with their brother's wife, living in the same house with her! It seems unbelievable."
"Oh, wait! She's a new thing just now, but wait! We shall presently see and hear—what we shall see and hear! If they get on peaceably, I'll warrant it's not because Miss Jennie and Miss Sadie are angels. It's Mrs. Danny that's so awfully easy-going they can't quarrel with her. But of course it can't possibly last. If she is easy-going, she isn't a jelly-fish. They're bound to clash after a while. You'll see what you'll see!"
"Even the bride herself looks happy," one maiden pensively remarked. "I shouldn't think she would. I couldn't have married Dan Leitzel."
"You don't know what you might have done if tempted," a friend of the maiden pointedly suggested.
"But she seems to be devoted to Danny. She really acts so."
"Oh, that's just her Southern warmth of manner. Don't take that seriously. As if a stunning girl like that could be in love with him!"
"But I heard she was poor and dependent and that Danny's devotion and goodness to her made her just adore him! An old man's darling, you know!"
There were only one or two people who, more observant than communicative, noted that Mrs. Leitzel, though lazily good-humoured and apparently happy, had a strained expression in her large, soft eyes, a veiled, elusive look of trouble, almost of suffering.
Meantime, the people of New Munich were not more astonished than were Daniel's sisters themselves at the relation which they found themselves sustaining toward his wife. It had taken only a few days of association with Margaret to disarm them of their stiffness, suspicion, and jealousy of their brother's devotion to her. They found her so surprisingly willing to take second place in her husband's house, so disinclined to usurp any of the prerogatives which they had so long enjoyed (and which they knew most people would think should now be hers) that in spite of many things about her which they could not understand or approve, they presently succumbed to the subtle spell of her magnetism and her docility and became almost as enthusiastic about her as was Danny himself.
Long and earnest were the discussions they held in secret over her.