But Miss Sharp persisted, and the president, driven into a corner, was forced to propose that one of the ladies named should resign. Nobody seemed willing to do this, however, and it was at length decided that some one of the four should regard herself as a substitute, to act in case one of the others could not serve. The president could not, however, bring herself to specify which should be the substitute, and was greatly relieved when the conversation was turned by Mrs. Henderson's remarking,-- "Speaking of substitutes reminds me. Did you know that you could make mince-pies without meat? My niece from Bangor--" [_The talk of the next fifteen minutes is omitted, as being irrelevant, relating exclusively to cooking. At the expiration of that time, the business of the occasion was accidentally reintroduced by an allusion on the part of Mrs. Crowler to some delicious chocolate macaroons which she had eaten at a fair in East Machias._] "We really must have some more committees," the president said, recovering herself with a start. "Will somebody make a motion?" "I don't think Friday is a good day for a fair, any way," Mrs. Lowell now remarked, reflectively. "The 25th is Friday." "Oh, I never thought of that," exclaimed half a dozen ladies, in dismay. "We should be all tired out for baking-day." "I don't know what we can do," the president said, in despairing accents,--"there seem to be so many days, and only one fair; and we've had so many dates proposed. We shall have to unvote something." It was at this crisis that the Hon. Mrs. Sampson Hoyt rose to the heights of the parliamentary opportunity. "I move the previous question," she said, distinctly and firmly. There fell a hush of awe over the sewing-circle, and even Miss Snob was a moment in bringing out her second. "I don't think!" Mrs. President Smithe ventured, a little falteringly, "that I quite understood the motion." "I moved," the Hon. Mrs. Hoyt replied, with the air of one conscious that her husband had once been almost nominated to the State Legislature, and had been addressed as Honorable ever after, "I moved the previous question." "Yes?" Mrs. Smithe said, inquiringly and pleadingly. "That takes everything back to the beginning," Mrs. Hoyt condescended to explain, "and we can then change the date of our fair in a strictly legal way." She threw a glance of superb scorn around her as she spoke, and even Miss Sharp took on a subdued and corrected air. "It is moved and seconded the previous question," Mrs. Smithe propounded, with an air of great relief. "It is a vote." "I don't think we had better do away with everything in this case," Mrs. Hoyt observed, with a smile of gracious concession. "We might let the committee of arrangements stand." "That she's chairman of," whispered Mrs. Crowler, spitefully. "I don't remember," observed Miss Sharp, gazing into futurity with an air of abstraction, "that there is anything in the by-laws about the previous question."