Margreet started a training course, offered in Leiden, to become a nursery school teacher. The  

study was a short one. When the director of the school fell in love with her, she was the one, oddly enough, who had to leave the school. At that time, she was able to go to stay with an uncle in The Hague.

In March 1895, while living in The Hague, she responded to a marriage advertisement placed by Rudolph MacLeod, an officer in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army: 'Officer on leave from the Dutch East Indies in search of a girl possessed of a sweet character. Intention: marriage.' The two met one another for the first time on 7 March 1895. Six days later, Margreet, then 19 years old, was engaged to marry Rudolph (generally known as

'John') MacLeod, 39. They were married four months later on 11 July 1895. The recently married couple went to live in Amsterdam at the home of Rudolph's sister.