as rosy
and fat and matronly, while her sisters were pinched and anemic. They
were old maids by nature, she by chance.

"It becomes you well enough, but under the circumstances," Jane said,
exchanging glances with Selina, "it seems a pity to buy all these
things."

Mary Ann opened her eyes wide.

"Circumstances? What circumstances? It's no more than I buy every
fall," protested the puzzled Mary Ann. "The flowered piece is for a
morning wrapper, the tartan's for a street suit, and the blue-gray's a
company dress."

Jane and Selina again exchanged glances, and Selina nodded.

"You never did seem to look ahead, Mary Ann," said Jane, thus
encouraged. "I don't believe you realize that an attack of bronchitis
is serious at Ma's age. I wouldn't have got _all_ my clothes colored.
It's never any harm to have _one_ black dress."

Mary Ann gasped.

"Good gracious!" was all she said.

"Well, Mary Ann," said Selina, coming to Jane's rescue, "there's not a
particle of use shutting your eyes to plain facts. Ma's in a serious
condition, and if anything happens to her, what'll you do with all
that stuff? You may dye the blue, but that tartan won't take a good
black."

"Why," Mary Ann said, recovering speech, "Ma has bronchitis at the
beginning of cold weather every year. She'll be downstairs in a week
or two, the same as she always is."

"I hope so, Mary Ann. I hope, when next she comes down, it won't be
feet first. But we're told to prepare for the worst while we hope for
the best," said Jane solemnly, imagining that she was quoting
scripture. "You and Ma act as if there was nothing to prepare for. To
see you, sitting by her sick-bed, reading trashy love-stories out of
the magazines, and both of you as much interested!--it gives me a
creepy feeling."

"When my poor husband lay in his last illness," sighed Selina, "he was
only too willing to be flattered into the belief that he was going to
get well, but I wouldn't let him deceive himself, and it's a comfort
to me now I didn't. I had everything ready but my crape when he died.
I didn't have to depend on the neighbors for a dress for the funeral,
as I've known some do."

"Many a time I've lent, but never borrowed," Jane boasted.

"And of course, never laying off widow's weeds, I'm ready for whatever
comes." Selina stroked her tarletan cuffs complacently, yet modestly
withal, as if not wishing to make others feel too keenly the
difference in their position.

[Illustra