Do you need to be told how that society hummed and buzzed after that? Meetings were held each week, sometimes twice a week. Committees were formed, and dashed hither and thither through the crowded streets. Worsted, and canvas, and embroidery silk, and ribbon, and beads, and lace came to the front, and became matters of even more importance than usual. The air was full of them, parlors were full of them, tongues were full of them; go where you would, you were destined to hear about "a lovely rose-colored tidy in a new stitch," or "an elegant afghan," the materials for which were to cost twenty dollars, or a "magnificent Bible cushion" that was all a mass of raised silk embroidery that would take "days and days of close work to finish"; or of some other of the endless pieces of fancy work getting ready for the fair. Neither was the festival part neglected. The city was districted, the streets were canvassed, miles of energetic walking were accomplished, and the result was cake—black cake, white cake, brown cake, chocolate, delicate, cream, cocoanut, sponge, and, to crown all, the "loveliest great mound of angels' food that was ever made in this town!" So one enthusiastic miss reported. Think of a company of rational beings, meeting and eating up a loaf or two of angels' food, for the purpose of securing a Sabbath-school library! Cakes were not all! Jellies, pickles, chickens, ham, tongue—oh! What not? If you had looked into the receiving room of the Penn Avenue Church, on the afternoon of the eventful evening, you would have almost supposed that the dear people were making ready to give a Christmas dinner to this great, cold, homeless outside world, so bountiful were the provisions. But they were not; they were only preparing to eat their way into a Sunday-school library for the use of their own boys and girls. But let no novice suppose for a moment that the afternoon of this day had been reached in peace. If I should undertake to give you a history of one third of the troubles through which the self-sacrificing leaders walked, my story would be far too long. Did not Helen Brooks say that Sallie Stuart's pincushion was a "dowdy-looking thing," and should not be on her table; that Sallie did not know how to do fancy work anyway, and never ought to have tried? Did not Alice Jenkins say that Stella Somebody had marked her sofa pillow "ridiculously high;" that it was really a disgrace to a church to charge such exorbitant prices? And did not both Sallie and Stella hear of these things, by that mysterious process which is rife in all society, and which nobody understands, and did they not both withdraw in affront, declaring that they would have nothing more to do with the Penn Avenue fair, nor the Penn Avenue Sabbath-school? This is only a hint of the miasm of which the air was full.