Her Husband's Purse

Esquire; but his two maiden sisters with whom he lived, and to whom the news was also wholly unexpected, were appalled, confounded. That Dann

removed from their watchful care-watchful these twenty years past that no designing Jezebel might get a chance at the great fortune of

stared in consternation at the glaring headlines of the New Munich Evening Intelligencer, which announced, in type that to the sisters seemed letters of flame, the upsetting news of their idolized brother having been at last matrimonially trapped. Being confronted with his betrothal in print seemed to make it hopelessly incontrovertible. They might have schemed to avert the imp

chance, once, to look her over and tell him if she'd suit

ting on that. She'll soon learn that she'll have to do with just what he likes to give her and no more! And of course Danny'll consult us as to just how much he ought to leave her handle. W

a bold, common thing that just took

ould mebby put a stop to it? She put him up to fixing it all ti

that way!" f

s had preserved her vigour, physically and mentally. Her sharp face was deeply lined, but the keenness of her eyes was undimmed,

or Sadie, too, was miserly, and Jennie loved to see her younger sister arrayed gorgeously in cheap finery, her taste inclining to that of a girl of sixteen. A dormant mother-instinct, too, such as must exist, however obscurely, in every frame of woman, even in that of a Jennie Leitzel, found an outlet in coddling Sadie's health and in ministering to and encouraging a certain plaintiveness in the younger woman's disposition. So, these two sisters, depending

oration law firm, who was enormously rich and a highly eligible young man; that is, he used to be young; and though New Munich regarded him as a confirmed old bachelor, his sisters

squire. But in communities where the ruling class is descended from the Pennsylvania Dutch, "society" is remarkably elastic and has almost no closed doors to the appeal of wealth, h

the little town of New Munich had not been acquired so easily

n the early days of his prosperity, had, at his sisters' instigation, built this

eir penuriousness; the absence of books and of real pictures, but the obtrusive decorations of heavy gilt frames on chromos; the luridly coloured domestic carpets; heavy, ugly upholstered furniture, manifesting the unf

daughter, or Judge Kuntz's oldest girl-or Mamie Gundaker and her father a bank president! Any of these high ladies of Ne

o this thing behind our backs, withou

g we could have had here i

's well-fixed or poor!" cried

"that Danny would pick out a poor girl. Nor a comm

h women, Sadie! If she's smart,

t stubborn-he

bborn-headed sometimes. But if she's smart and found out how

odded Sadie. "I wonder i

evotion to Danny. She was dressed this evening i

go on the street, us not knowing anything about it, not even who she is yet! If folks

Danny himself has knew her only

t it, now,

don'

s-marrying a man she k

ake her even a month, Jennie, to

d tone, "she's anyhow got to act genteel before folks and not give Danny and us a shamed fa

idea!" mou

e added anxiously, always concerned for her sister's health which was real

der!" Sadie shoo

what it says all," Jennie ordered. "But si

ch was, they knew, now reading with feelings of astonishment, curiosity, disappointment or chagrin, as the case might be, for the sisters were sure that many heartaches among the marriageable maidens of the town would

was headed i

ICTIM OF CU

TZEL LED L

EN'S A

hed heavily

of which Mr. Leitzel is such a prominent, prosperous, and pleasant member. The news comes to our town as a great surprise, for we had almost begun to give Danny up as a hopeless bach. He will, however, lead his bride to Hymen's altar early next month and bring her straightway to his palatial residence on Main Street, presided over by his estimable s

nd the niece of the learned scholar and eminent psychologist, the late Dr. Osmond Berkeley, with whom Miss Margaret made her home at Berkeley Hill until his decease a year ago, since which sad event she has continued to reside at this same homestead, her marrie

happy bride and groom, Mrs. and Mr. Daniel Leitzel. No doubt many very elegant society events will t

r she's well-fixed-though to be sure if she come

returned Sadie despondently. "You may better believe, Jenn

surmised, "as if her brother-in-law (that lawyer Danny had dealings with) wanted to get rid of he

d be so easy worked?" Sa

re were those among Danny's acquaintances who would no

thi

long ago a'ready if I hadn't of opened his e

"Say, Jennie, what'll Hiram sa

then seemed to him a dizzy height of ambition, the highest human calling, the United Brethren ministry. For twenty years now he had been pastor of a small church in the neighbouring borough of Millerstown. His sisters were very proud to have a brother who was "a preacher." It was so respectable. They never failed to feel a thrill at sight of his printed name in

ldren. He always hoped, I think, that Danny wouldn't ever get married, so's his children would get all. To be sure the ministry ain't a money-ma

nny's picked out as saving and hard-

picking out" a wife had prolonged his bachelorhood far into midd

he little borough of Millerstown that was manna to the Leitzel egotism. Hiram really thought of himself (as in his youth he had always looked upon ministers) as

congregation, and they all approved of the frugality by which he and his wife managed to live on the little s

culation, "that Danny's marrying as well as Hira

ed Sadie. "Say, Jennie!" she s

l, w

know about Danny'

ennie curtly answered. "It'll mebby be printed i

'll she think of Mom yet, with her New Mennonite gar

help for their ste

Danny would be ashamed to leave his wife see her. And

to see her? We don't ever have Mom in here

too," Sadi

ould bring a good rent, he says, and we've no call to leave her live on it free any longer. But I tell Hiram it would ma

y blame us when she ain't our

uch Danny is thought of and how smart he is and what fine sermons Hiram preaches and how she kep' us all when we were little while Pop drank so and we hadn't anything but what sh

down on us and say she always treated us like her own and

he same"-she suddenly lowered her voice apprehensively-"we darsent start folks talking, or first thing we

other in the first place?" pleaded Sadie. "And Danny always says we've

and be forced to give a lot of our money over to Mom! Yes, I often say to Hiram, 'Bett

anyhow then!"

thin for even private family handling-"we'll be getting a letter from Danny giving us the details. S

"folks will talk at our still keeping house for Danny when he's married? Yo

ways and how he likes things-and him so particular about his little comforts! He wouldn't

ife's not liking

oming here without asking us if we like it-sh

ebby," Sadie suggested doubtfully, "

money in her husband's care, w

o that till they saw once what k

y maintained, "Danny'

hing as a distinguished lineage; New Munich "aristocrats" certainly did not have any; and the sisters' experiences being limited to life as it was in New Munich, whose "first families" were s

tral governors were related to Miss Berkeley, the relat

tatement as to the firm financial standing of her family. And on that point the newspaper, though furnished by D

ind of slavish labour; from an obscurity that had been bitterly humiliating to the self-esteem and the ambition which was characteristic of every one of them. It was money that had given them power, place, influence; that made their fellowmen treat th