"It stands up alone, with both arms out! I don't dass to go back. I shall laugh if I do, an' if I laugh, Stefana'll cry. She don't think it's f-funny." The shrieks showed signs of returning, and Miss Theodosia again had recourse to stern measures. "Count ten!" she demanded, as she shook. They went back together to the mysterious something that stood alone with both arms out. It was in that pose as they approached it. Miss Theodosia thought it was f--funny; an awful desire to shriek like Evangeline took possession of her. She counted ten in inward haste. "I can't do anything with it!" wailed poor Stefana. "And Elly Precious gets into it, and makes it walk! He's in it now." "It's walkin'!" shrieked Evangeline, as the portentously stiff shirt staggered a little to one side. Stefana, filled with enthusiasm and generosity of soul, had starched not the bosom alone but the entire shirt. She had done it thoroughly. The result was alarming. It was a terrible shirt! "Tell me what to do--somebody tell me!" entreated the little laundress. "I've unstarched it, and unstarched it, and seems as if it got stiffer." "Boiling water," breathed Miss Theodosia, too spent with her struggles not to laugh, to admit of further speech. "Wait! Don't anybody dass to pour boilin' water on till I get Elly Precious out! Come to Evangeline this minute, darlin' dear--no, they shan't boil him!" Elly Precious emerged, crowing. The deaf-but-not-dumb little Flagg appeared, to swell the number around the Terrible Shirt. Stefana dried her tears. Miss Theodosia had the sense of being looked up to--relied upon. She rose to the occasion buoyantly. As unused as Stefana to men's bosoms, she yet stepped into the breach. Unused to issuing orders, she issued them. "Evangeline, you and Carruthers see to the baby. Stefana, come with me. Bring--it." They went back to the big house, she with that new and intoxicating sense of importance, and Stefana with the Terrible Shirt. "Whose is it--that?" she asked, indicating the creaking white garment. "What were you doing with it?" "Starching it," mumbled poor Stefana. "It took most a package. He said he liked his stiff. 'Put in plenty o' starch,' he said to Mother, and she always did. So I did. I thought if he said--" "If who said?" It took a long time to establish the identity of the Terrible Shirt. "If he did, the man it belongs to." "What man--who?" "The man that writes things." "What things?" "We don't know exactly. Evangeline thinks tracts. She says his room was all full o' half sheets o' paper--lying all over everywhere. She saw 'Good Lord' on one. Perhaps it's sermons. Mother always sent Evangeline home with his wash; I never went. He is a very nice man--oh, that's why I feel so bad about his shirt! I wouldn't care if he was an--an infidel!" "Bless your heart!"