The most shocking occurrence the town had to record concerning Mahala was that one day, in bitter winter weather, she had surrounded herself on the street with a circle of her girl friends and in their shelter deftly removed her exquisitely embroidered petticoat for the benefit of a schoolmate who was visibly shivering with cold. When Mahala, with watery eyes and a red nose, faced her mother that night and confessed what she had done, Elizabeth Spellman began by being shocked and ended by becoming bewildered. “It was all right,” she said primly, “for you to give Susanna Bowers _a_ petticoat, but you should have gone to the store to Papa and gotten one suitable for Susanna.” Mahala looked at her mother intently. “But, Mama,” she protested, “Susanna was chilling. She needed something that minute; my petticoat doesn’t care who wears it. It just loves to keep Susanna warm.” A slow red suffused Elizabeth Spellman’s face. “And you didn’t stop to consider,” she said coldly, “that all the hours of work I put upon that petticoat went there for my very own little daughter, and not for a girl who will not know either how to appreciate or how to care for it, and who will have nothing else suitable to wear with it.” Mahala’s brightest light swept across her forehead. “That’s exactly the truth, Mother,” she said emphatically. “I’ll tell Susanna about the borax and the rain water and how to wash her pretty new petticoat, and I’ll ask Papa to give me some more clothes for her, so the petticoat won’t feel so lonesome and ashamed of the things it’s with.” When Elizabeth Spellman detailed this conversation to Mahlon that night, she had considerable difficulty in gaining either his comprehension or his credence. There are not many men in the world named “Mahlon,” while it is a curious coincidence that all of them who are, seem very similar. Every fastidious fibre in Mahlon Spellman’s being rebelled at the thought of the high grade of pressed flannel bearing the exquisite handwork that always had enfolded his child, being put on the person of any Susanna of the outskirts. Such a wonderful town as Ashwater had no business with outskirts; it had no business with men who were not successful; it had no business with women who were not thrifty and good housekeepers. It was possible for every human being to be comfortably housed, well dressed, and well fed, if they would exercise even a small degree of the personal efforts of which each one was capable. Mahlon felt outraged and he said so succinctly. He told his wife in very distinct terms that she had failed in her manifest duty. She should have sent Mahala to recover the garment at once. Mrs. Spellman looked at Mahlon intently. She usually toadied to him because that was the well-considered attitude that as a bride she assumed to be the proper one; ordinarily it was effective, but there were occasions when she told Mahlon the unvarnished truth. This appealed to her as very nearly, if not quite, an Occasion.