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. [Illustration: "JANE AND SELINA ... LOOKED AT PATIENT AND NURSE WITH DISAPPROVING GLOOM"] Mary Ann gathered the dress goods together and threw them in a heap on the sofa. "There, I'm sorry I showed them to you," she cried; "you've got me almost turned against them. I declare, I'd be melancholy in two minutes more. Now you listen to me, Selina'n'Jane. There's no need to worry about Ma's preparations for the next world; she's not thinking of leaving this world yet, and there's no reason why she should. The day you two go away, she'll be standing at the gate to say good-by to you, just the same as she always is. You see if she's not, Selina'n'Jane."