Answer:
A) To foreshadow conflicts to follow in the story
Explanation:
The given excerpt is from the short story Dr. Heidegger's Experiment written by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The story tells about Dr. Heidegger and his four elderly friends who want to become young again. He gives them the water from the Fountain of Youth, and they temporarily regain their youth. The three mentioned ex-lovers of the Widow Wycherly begin competing for her attention again. In the end, in the middle of their argument, they smash the vase that contained the water, which returns them to their previous age.
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which the author gives us hints about the events that take place later in the story. By including the sentence starting with It's a circumstance worth mentioning, he gives us a hint that there may be some competition between these characters later on. That does come true. This is why option A is the correct one.
