"Here it is!--that is, if it's yours. Stefana says to ask. 'Tain't ours. Mercy gracious, no! We don't take our aperns to bed. Stefana never heard of such a thing. Neither o' us never. In bed--right straight in bed! An' Stefana hugging it up like everything! She says to ask you if it's yours because it ain't ours, nor anybody else's, an' it's got to be somebody's apern, and once I thought I saw a gray 'n' white one hanging through your window--I mean on a nail, but, mercy gracious, what was it doing in bed with me an' Stefana!" Even Evangeline's breath had limitations. She stopped as headlong as she had begun. She unwound the large, voluminous-skirted apron from her grasp and extended it. "Here 'tis, if it's yours," she gasped, spent. She was gazing at it with a species of awe; it was an "apern" of mystery, not a human apern. "An' if 't isn't, take it--Stefana said not to dare to bring it back. We--we're sort of afraid of it, honest. Though, of course, Stefana says it must 've blew in the window"--the tide of speech was coming in once more--"an'--an' sort of landed on the bed, an' Stefana kind of grabbed it in her sleep, thinking it was Elly Precious. But, mercy gracious!" "Sit down," Miss Theodosia said, smiling. "Doesn't it tire you to talk as fast as that?" "Some," admitted Evangeline, "but I don't mind. What I mind is ghosts--aperns an' the kind with--with legs." She dropped her voice. "I saw one las' night." "Mercy gracious!" Miss Theodosia breathed. Evangeline nodded solemnly. "Out the window. I woke up feelin' one, an' I saw it goin' across the grass. White. Slinky." "Oh, not--slinky!" protested Miss Theodosia, suddenly championing the ghost-with-legs. "Slinky," firmly. "I guess I'd a-screeched right out if I hadn't remembered the baby. Elly Precious is terrible hard to put to sleep second time. You aren't much acquainted with babies, are you?" Again--so soon! Miss Theodosia's humility returned. "We're acquainted, over to our house! Mother says babies are great edge--edge--" "Educators?" "That's it! Mercy gracious, then I should think Mother'd be graduated!" After Evangeline's departure, Miss Theodosia set down her coffee cup and gave herself up to laughter. The room rang with the pleasant sound of it. "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.