"Oh—oh, what? You mean I can do you up, honest? Starch you, and iron you, too—of course, I could wash you. Oh, if I could drop Elly Precious I'd get right up and dance!"
"Give Elly Precious to me, and go ahead, my dear," said the White Lady with a smile.
But Stefana shook her head. She was covertly studying the white dress once more. It was very white—she could detect no promising spots or creases, and she drew a sigh even in the midst of her rejoicing. If a person only sat on porches, in chairs, how often did white dresses need doing up? Miss Theodosia interpreted the sigh and look.
"Oh, I've three of them rolled up in my trunk; aren't three enough to begin on? And shirtwaists—I'm sure I don't know how many of those. I'll go and get them now."
In the hall she stopped at the mirror, jibing at the image confronting her. "You've done it this time, Theodosia Baxter! When you can't bear a wrinkle! But, there, don't look so scared—daughters inherit their mothers' talents, plenty of times. And you need only try it once, of course."
After Stefana had gone away, doubly laden with clothes and bulky baby, Miss Theodosia remained on her porch. She found herself leaning over and parting her porch-vines, to get a glimpse of the little house next door. She had always loathed that little house with its barefaced poverties and uglinesses, and it had been a great relief to her to have it stand vacant in past years. She had left it vacant when she started upon her last globe-trotting. Now here it was teeming with life, and here she was aiding and abetting it! What new manner of Theodosia Baxter was this?
"You'd better get up and globe-trot again, Woman, and not unpack," she uttered, with a lone woman's habit of talking to herself. "You were never made to live in a house like other people—to sit on porches and rock. And certainly, Theodosia Baxter, you were never made to live next to that little dry-goods box. It will turn you gray, poor thing." She felt a gentle pity for herself, then gentle wrath seized her. Why had she come home, anyway? Already she was lonely and restless. Why—could anybody tell her why—had she weakly yielded to two small girls? Her dear-beloved white dresses! And she could not go back on her promise—not on a Baxter promise! There was, indeed, the release of going away again, back to her globe-trotting—
"I might write to Cornelia Dunlap," Miss Theodosia thought. "Maybe she is sorry she came home, too."
Cornelia Dunlap had been her recent comrade of the road. They had traveled to many far places together. What would Cornelia say to that little conference of three—and a baby—on the front porch?
"My dear," wrote Miss Theodosia, "you will think I have been swapped in my cradle since I left you! 'That is no fellow tramp of mine,' you will say, 'That woman being victimized by children in knee-high dresses! Theodosia Baxter nothing!'"—for Cornelia Dunlap in moments of surprise resorted sometimes to slang, which she claimed was a sturdy vehicle of speech. "You will set down your teacup hard," wrote on Miss Theodosia,—"I know you are drinking tea!—when I tell you the little story of the Whitewashing of Theodosia Baxter. But shall I tell it? Why expose Theodosia Baxter's weaknesses when hitherto she has posed as strong? Soberly, Cornelia, I am as much surprised at myself as you will be (oh, I shall tell it!). Do you remember your Mother Goose? The little astonished old lady who took a nap beside the road and woke to find her petticoats cut off at her knees? 'Oh, lawk-a-daisy me, can this be I!' cried she. I'm not sure those were just her words, but they will do. Oh, lawk-a-daisy me, can this be Theodosia Baxter! The Astonished Little Old Lady, if I remember my Mother Goose, resorted to the simple expedient of going home and letting her little dog decide if she were she. But I have no little dog.