1633

She heaved a sigh which contained the grief of the ages, and plumped herself into her favorite armchair. "So be it. Americans are all mad-even my Henry-and I have given up. Do as you will."

Mike smiled down on her. He was quite fond of Veronica Dreeson. Sure, sure, she was a tough old biddy. So what? Mike approved of "tough old biddies"-in the new world created by the Ring of Fire even more than in the one they had left behind. One of the reasons he hadn't been quite as concerned as he would normally have been at the fact that Rebecca and Gretchen were leaving their infants for a few months was because Gramma Richter had immediately volunteered to make sure they were looked after properly. Which, indeed, she had. Directly, in the case of Gretchen and Jeff's two children, who were now living in the Dreeson household. Indirectly, in the case of Mike and Rebecca's daughter Sephie, for whom she had found a young German couple who could serve as Sephie's live-in nannies while Mike was absent during the day. Mike had trusted the old woman's judgment, and had not found reason to regret doing so.

Old woman. She wasn't, really. Veronica was still short of sixty-almost the same age as Melissa Mailey. If she'd been a 21 st -century American, people would have thought of her as being in late middle age. But the rigors of her time and her life made her appear much older than Melissa; older, even, than her husband Henry, who was pushing seventy.

Still…

"You're looking good, Ronnie," he announced. And, in truth, she was. The withered crone who had appeared in Grantville two years earlier, as part of the family Jeff and his friends had rescued from mercenaries, was long gone. Now, Veronica just looked "weathered by experience." She'd gained her normal weight back, for one thing, and for another-

"It is my new teeth," announced Veronica with satisfaction, opening her mouth to display the marvelous dentures. The teeth clacked shut firmly. "Other than that-no difference. Just a feeble old woman."

Mike and Henry both started assuring her that there was no truth whatsoever to that self-assessment-which there certainly wasn't when it came to the "feeble" business-but were interrupted in mid-peroration. Gretchen's younger sister Annalise more or less barreled into the living room, holding Jeff and Gretchen's son Joseph.

"Are they all right?" she demanded breathlessly. Not waiting for an answer, plunged on to the real question which preoccupied a sixteen-year-old girl nursing her first serious crush: "Has anything happened to Heinrich?"

Then, glancing guiltily at her grandmother: "I mean, Major Schmidt."

Mike suppressed a grin. The glare Veronica was bestowing on her granddaughter Annalise was truly a wonder. Entire legions of vagabond hoydens might have crisped like bacon in that basilisk gaze.

Veronica had firm opinions on the subject of romance, and they were the opinions of most Germans of the era. Rather to Mike's surprise, he had discovered that people in northern Europe in the 17 th century did not typically marry at a young age. Quite the opposite, in fact. Most men didn't marry until they were in their late twenties, and women not until they were in their mid-twenties.

The reason was simple, and economic. Unlike a modern industrial society, where men and women could find jobs which could support a family at a young age, northern Europeans-unless they were of the nobility or rich-had to spend years accumulating the capital necessary to do so. In the case of young men, usually by learning a trade or establishing themselves as a farmer; in the case of young women, often, by working as a servant.

So, there was not much of an age gap, either, between groom and bride. Certainly not the eight-year gap which existed between Heinrich and Annalise-even assuming Heinrich was interested in the first place, which Mike rather doubted. He knew the young German officer was aware of Annalise's enthusiasm, but so far as Mike knew Heinrich did not return it. Judging, at least, from veiled comments the man had made to him before he left with Rebecca on their diplomatic mission. (With some relief, from what Mike could tell-Annalise was not exactly subtle about the whole thing.)

It wasn't that Heinrich didn't find Annalise attractive, of course-no healthy man his age wouldn't have found her attractive. At the age of sixteen, it was now evident that Annalise was going to be even better looking than her older sister, and her personality was considerably sunnier than Gretchen's. But Heinrich shared Veronica's traditional German view of such things: marriage was something which was a matter of practicality, not "romance" in the American sense of the term. And while the handsome young officer might have been willing to engage in a casual dalliance with an eager teenage girl-