fragrant and strong. Momently, Miss Theodosia's strength "got up." She
moved about the kitchen briskly--when had she launched out upon a
night's work like this? Adventure!--call it adventure.

Work to Miss Theodosia had always meant something that other people
did,--the Stefanas and their mothers and brothers and fathers. What she
herself did, a gentle, dilatory playing at work, hardly merited the
name. A bit of dusting, tea-and-toasting, making her own bed, cooking
for sheer love of cooking, what did they count in Miss Theodosia's
summing up of tasks?

Always there had been some one to do her heavy things. She had put her
washings out and taken her dinners in; three times a week she was swept
and scrubbed and made immaculate.

But to-night--to-night was different. This was to be no playing at work.
Miss Theodosia rose to the occasion gallantly--indeed, exultantly.
Thrills of enthusiasm ran up, ran down her spine. She prepared for a
night of it.

The dresses immersed in steaming hot water and her supper eaten, she
stretched drying-lines, with considerable difficulty, from corner to
corner of her kitchen, prepared an ironing-board, and got out long-idle
irons. At eight o'clock she stopped for breath. Stefana's starch still
resisted all inducements to part with Miss Theodosia's dresses; more hot
water was required. After another steamy bath, they were cooled and
wrung and draped over the crisscross clotheslines in the hot kitchen.
Then Miss Theodosia temporarily retired from the field of battle.

Theodosia Baxter had come back from her travelings to this small