send them home without folding next time--or I can go and get them
myself."

Unpinning Stefana's many pins, she lifted out one of the dresses. It
creaked starchily under her hands; it opened out before Miss Theodosia's
horrified vision. She uttered a groan.

Where, now, was that tender little heart-string tune?




CHAPTER II


Miss Theodosia saw pink. Near-anger surged up within her at this
ruinous, this piteous result of Stefana's toil. The result dangled
creaksomely from her hands, revealing new wrinkles and smooches and
leprous patches of starch at every motion. What was in this bundle would
be in the rest--there was no hope.

In Theodosia Baxter's little girlhood, she had played there were two
"'Dosies," a good one and a bad one. The Good 'Dosie was often away from
home, but was sometimes apt to appear at unexpected moments, to the
embarrassment of the Bad 'Dosie. Stamp her foot as she would, Bad 'Dosie
could not always drive the unwelcome intruder away.

"I don't like her!" the small sinner had once been heard to say.
"She--she p'eaches at me!"