"We're ashamed of her, Margaret. She's not a lady, though I don't see why that should reflect on us, since she isn't a blood relation. And as to Miss Hamilton, haven't I made it clear to you that it would humiliate me unbearably to have my wife seen in company with my stenographer?"But Hiram said she wouldn't be able to do the washing like our hired girl did, and we couldn't keep her and the hired girl; and anyhow he couldn't have her living with us, her being a Mennonite. 'It stands to reason!' Hiram said. So she went back home again and I haven't seen her since. I pity her, too, livin' alone out there, as old as what she is. I can't think how she makes out, either! What makes it seem so hard is that she was such a good, kind step-mother to them all her hard work that kept a roof over them for many years while their father drank and didn't do anything for them."
Margaret still made no comment, though she was looking very grave and thoughtful.
"Would it mebby make you ashamed, too," asked Lizzie, "before your grand friends in New Munich, to have her 'round, she talks so Dutch and ignorant?"
"No," Margaret shook her head, "I'm not 'proud and high-minded' like Jennie and Sadie."
"Well," admitted Lizzie confidentially, "I'm not, either; I told Hiram once, 'You have no need to feel ashamed of her. Wasn't Christ's father nothing but a carpenter?' But Hiram answered me, 'Och, Lizzie, you're dumb! Joseph was no blood relation to Christ.'. 'Well,' I said, 'neither is your step-mother your blood relation.'"
"I suppose," Margaret speculated, "if their step-mother had money to leave them, they wouldn't feel so 'high-minded' about her, would they?"
"Oh, no," Lizzie readily assented; "that would make all the difference! But, you see, she hasn't a thing but what she gets from the vegetables she can raise."
"I do begin to see," nodded Margaret.
"Danny never told us," Lizzie ventured tentatively, curiosity evidently getting the better of delicacy, "what you're worth!"
"What I'm 'worth?' He hasn't tried me long enough to find out. But I hope I'll be worth as much to him as you are to Hiram—giving him children and making a home for him."
"But I mean," explained Lizzie, colouring a little at her own temerity, but with curiosity oozing from every pore of her, "what did you bring Danny? I guess Jennie and Sadie told you already that I brought Hiram thirty thousand. And I'll get more when my father is deceased."
"Are both your parents living?" asked Margaret with what seemed to Lizzie persistent evasion.
"My mother died last summer," she returned in a matter-of-fact, almost cheerful tone of voice. "Pop had her to Phil-delph-y and she got sick for him, and he had to bring her right home, and in only half a day's time, she was a corpse already!" said Lizzie brightly.
"As though she expected me to say, 'Hurrah! Good for Mother!'" thought Margaret wonderingly.
"Did you inherit, too, from your parents?" persisted her inquisitor.
"All my virtues and all my vices, I believe," answered Margaret, turning away and walking to the door. "Shall we go down now?"
Lizzie took a step after her: "Maybe you think I spoke too soon?" she asked anxiously.
"'Spoke too soon?'"
"Asking you what you're worth. To be sure it ain't any of my business. But I thought I'd ask you once. Hiram would be so pleased if after you go I could tell him. He wonders so, did his brother Danny do as well as he did. But I guess I spoke too soon."
She paused expectantly.
"Never mind," said Margaret dully, again turning away.
"Say!" said Lizzie solicitously, "you look tired and a little pale. Would you feel for a cup of tea before you go?"
"No thank you, Lizzie."
Just here the door opened softly and Jennie and Sadie came into the room and went to the crib of the slumbering baby.
