found her way. She had a dim picture of littering little clothes about
the room and on the flat pillows of the bed the round, flushed face of
Evangeline. In a clothes basket beside the bed she dimly saw a little
mound that might be Elly Precious--it was Elly Precious! The little
mound stirred with a curious, nestling sound, and instantly Stefana
stirred also and crooned. Even in her sleep she was the little Mother.
Miss Theodosia felt her own throat tighten and fill.

Stefana still clasped the bundle of apron in her arms, and Miss
Theodosia did not dare try to take it away from her. She merely arranged
it a little more comfortably and smoothed Stefana out. Queer!--as if at
some other time, in some passed-by existence, she had smoothed out a
child. She seemed to know how. Suddenly she stooped and kissed, not
Stefana's thumbs but her eyes.

"The starch!" murmured Stefana as Miss Theodosia turned away. "Some'dy
get it!" The deep sleep had broken a little, and through the break
trickled a thread of Stefana's troubles. Then, again, silence and peace.
No sound from bed or clothes basket on the floor.

Outside, in the faint starlight, Miss Theodosia drew a long breath. She
softly laughed. Curious how much like a sob a little laugh can be! Oh,
starlit night of adventuring! What next? Miss Theodosia's mantle of
gentle melancholy slid from her shoulders; she no longer felt
apprehensions of growing old. Continually she saw Evangeline's rosy face
on that flat pillow, and the little mound of Elly Precious. She
remembered how tiny the house had looked from the inside, and how many
little littering clothes she had seen. The appealing quality of empty
little clothes! In Miss Theodosia's inside room of her soul, something
stirred behind the locked door.