"Will you l-listen to yourself, Theodosia Baxter!" she cried at length,
out of breath. "You actually sound happy!"

In the afternoon, a bevy of Miss Theodosia's old friends called on her
as she sat on her front porch. They had intended, they said, to wait
till the proper time, according to etiquette, for calls upon returned
travelers.

"But we wanted to see you so much, after all this time," one of them
said. "We decided we couldn't wait to be proper. Besides, it would be
such a risk. While we waited, you'd run off again. It was really our
only way. Ladies, will you see how lovely and white she looks! Perfectly
spotless!" The speaker sighed. Her own dress was dark and spot-colored.
"I don't see how you do it! I tell Andrew I'd rather dress in white than
in velvet--I love it! But, there, I couldn't get a minute to wear the
dresses; it would take all my days to do 'em up. Of course, with you
it's different. I don't suppose you ever toiled over an ironing-board a
day in your life."

Miss Theodosia gravely shook her head. "No," she said, curious little
twinkling lines deepening round her eyes, "I never did--a day--in my
life."

"That's what I thought! That's what I told Andrew. 'Theodosia Baxter
don't know what work is,' I told him. It's easy enough for some women to
wear lovely white things. Simplest thing in the world!"

Miss Theodosia's cryptic little smile lingered on her lips and in the
clear windows of her eyes, as she gazed past the voluble wife of Andrew,
through her vines, at the little House of Children next door. She