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?