a puzzled glance. Something was wrong.

"Of course you'll be well by then, dearie. You heard what the doctor
said to-day--that you might go back to having your cup of tea again
to-morrow. That's always the first sign you're getting well, then you
get leave to sit up. A week sitting up in your room, a week going
downstairs----" Mary Ann began to check off the weeks on her fingers,
but her mother interrupted.

"Was that Jane the doctor was talking to so long in the hall to-day?"

"Let me see. No, that was Selina."

"What was he saying to her?"

"He was saying every blessed thing that he's said to me since you took
sick, and that I've repeated over again to her. But you know how it is
with those two, Ma. I believe they think there's some kind of magic in
the marriage ceremony that gives a woman sense--they don't give me
credit for a speck. When Selina told me she was going to speak to the
doctor herself to-day, says she, 'You know that it stands to reason,
Mary Ann, that you can't be as experienced as one that has been a wife
five years and a widow seven'; and then Jane seemed to think it was
being cast up to her that she wasn't a widow, so she speaks up real
snappy, 'Nor one that's brought up a family of four boys,' and then
Selina _she_ looked mad." Mary Ann went off into a peal of laughter at
the remembrance.

"Jane told me he said at my age the heart was weak and there was
always more or less danger."

"He always says that after he's told what good sound lungs you have,
and what steady progress you're making, and how he'd rather pass you
for insurance than most women half your age. It means we're not to be
too reckless, all the same."

"She says if I _should_ recover from this attack----"

"Sakes alive! Did she come over all that with you too? 'If you should
recover from this attack, you'd better sell the house and visit round
among your married children?' Visit round as much as you like, Ma, but
have a house of your own to come back to; that's my advice."

"She said you wouldn't want to keep up a house after you were left
alone----"

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!'