Mary Ann threw up her hands. "No wonder Selina'n'Jane are thin--they wear the flesh off their bones providing for the future. They're born Colquhouns. I'm glad I take after your side of the family. Do you know what Selina told me, Ma? The preserves she put up this year won't have to be touched till winter after next. She has enough to last her over two years. 'Land sakes!' I said, 'what do you want to eat stale jam for, when you might have fresh?' The two get competing which will be furthest ahead in their work; from the way they talk, I shouldn't wonder if before long their fall house-cleaning would be done in the spring. It makes me think of what Pa used to tell about his uncle Alick Colquhoun--how he was earlier and earlier with the milking, till at last the evening milking was done in the morning, and the morning's was done the night before. Then there was Eva Meldrum; you remember she had all her marriage outfit ready before she was asked--sheets, tablecloths, and everything. As soon as Fred Healey proposed, she got right to work with the final preparations, and when she found herself left with nothing else to do--she just sat down and wrote out notes of thanks for the wedding gifts, leaving blanks for the names of the articles. I laughed till I was sore when she told me. 'You're a Colquhoun,' I said, 'though you do only get it from your grandma; you're a Colquhoun by nature if not by name.' You know I always say it comes from having such a name. It's enough to make an anxious streak in the family, having to spell it, one generation after another." Mary Ann laughed so heartily that the sound reached her sisters, who wondered what "Ma'n'Mary Ann" were at now. And still the little cloud lingered, and the smile only flitted waveringly. "I called at the library, Ma, and brought home the magazine. Now we'll find out for sure whether Lady Geraldine marries the earl--I don't believe but what she's in love with the private secretary." "Did you do the shopping?" her mother whispered. "Yes, and if you feel rested with your sleep, I'll show you what I got. Mr. Merrill opened out such a heap of pretty things, I didn't hardly know what to take. I was thinking, Ma, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have Miss Adams in to sew, the first week you're downstairs, when we've got to be in the house anyway." At this moment Jane and Selina came into the room to see what the sounds of merriment meant. They looked at patient and nurse with disapproving gloom. Jane settled herself at once to her knitting; Selina, who never worked in the afternoon when she was wearing her widow's collar and cuffs, sat regarding her mother with an expression of grieved wonder. Mrs. Colquhoun was uncomfortably conscious of being judged by something in her own child of other heritage than hers--one of the strangest sensations a parent can have.