say seemed futile. She was turning
to go into her mother's room again when an idea came to her.

"Don't go yet," she said. "I want to show you two something."

She went into her bedroom and returned in a few minutes with the
crimson dress over her arm.

"I was getting it fitted when the news of Ma's sickness came, and I
just put a waterproof over it. The seams have got a little ravelled. I
thought maybe you two would help me top-sew them."

"Mary Ann----!"

"You're so much cleverer than me with the needle. I was having it made
for--for--" Mary Ann could not trust her voice to tell what she had
been having it made for--"for an occasion. It won't be needed now as
soon as I expected, but you know, Selina'n'Jane, you always say
yourselves there's nothing like taking time by the forelock."

"Mary Ann----"

"A few hours would finish it up if we all got at it. Oh, there's Ma
coughing. I must run and get the pail of water and hot brick to steam
up the room."

She threw the dress into her sister's hands and was gone. They stood
looking at each other across it.

"_Poor_ Mary Ann!"

"She talked about an occasion. I don't know more'n one kind of
occasion people get dresses like this for. Can she mean----?"

"At her age? Nonsense!"

"Dr. Corbett appears to think a pile of her. He's a widower----"

"Now you speak of it, Selina, he does look at her in an admiring sort
of way. If there was anything of that kind in prospect--and of course
she'd lay off black sooner----"

The sun came out and streamed through the high window upon the dress
in their hands. It was like a drink of wine to look at it.

"There's no denying it's a handsome thing," Jane said. "It does seem a
pity to have the edges ravel. We might finish it, anyway, and sew it
up in a bag with camphor."

Through the gray languor that overlay Mrs. Colquhoun's consciousness,
glints of crimson began to find their way. Now the spot of color was
disappearing under Mary Ann's white apron; now it was in Jane's
stained hands; now it was passing from Jane to Selina.

Then she heard Dr. Corbett say, as he handed Mary Ann a small parcel,
"It's the first sewing-silk I ever bought, Miss Mary Ann, and I don't
know whether it's a good match, but it's crimson, anyhow, Merrill gave
me his word for that"; and when Mary Ann made a warning gesture
towards the bed, the faint stirring of interest almost amounted to
curiosity.

"What did he mean?" she asked, after the doctor h