She took off the print dress and put on the gown that Tibbie had made for her long ago, a soft black gown with a little white at the throat and wrists. Even on Mrs. Clapham’s large figure it fell into the graceful lines which seemed to come as a matter of course into everything that Tibbie touched, even the cheapest satin or the harshest serge. Yet, although it was Tibbie’s work and a labour of love, Mrs. Clapham couldn’t help feeling that it was rather funereal to-day. She had worn it at Tibbie’s wedding, and it had seemed gay enough then, but at this moment of coloured splendour it seemed almost sad. She felt that she wanted to flaunt forth in something light—something more like Miss Marigold’s pale blue _crêpe de Chine_! The thought of herself, however, clad after that fashion, reduced her to helpless mirth, and after shaking with laughter until she actually shook the room, she relinquished the _crêpe de Chine_ and recaptured her common sense. She felt even more restless upstairs than she had felt down, and it was all she could do to keep from dragging the battered tin trunk from under the bed and beginning to pack. All the time she was dressing she kept looking about, telling herself to remember this and not to forget that. It was absurd, she said to herself, to feel as if she were leaving that very day! It wasn’t as if she hated the cottage and was thankful to go; it was more than likely that she would weep her heart out when the time came to say good-bye. Already she was inclined to be jealous of the future tenant, wondering if she would keep it as it ought to be kept. Not that she could possibly keep it as Mrs. Clapham had done; that was beyond hope. The most that could be looked for was that she wouldn’t make it an actual by-word in the row. She planted a bonnet—the generic Bonnet, black, with a bit of velvet, a bit of ribbon, a bit of feather, a bit of jet—on the silvery smoothness of her parted hair, and was ready at last to set forth on her triumphant journey. With a humorous laugh she told herself that it was just as well she had changed her gown, or she would have been scrubbing that almshouse before she knew! Her promise to Martha Jane came back to her with the thought, making her realise how confident she had been. As if she would ever be likely to scrub floors for a woman like Martha Jane!... But again she was conscious of the narrow line that divides fortune from misfortune, triumph from disappointment, victory from defeat; and in the light of that rash promise was more thankful than ever for her escape.