Miss Minnie Coleman was general-in-chief of this particular entertainment, and she dropped a limp heap among the cushions one evening and recounted her trials to sympathetic ears: "Such a time, mamma! You never saw anything like it. It really is enough to discourage one with any attempt at doing good! Who do you suppose wants to be Vashti? That ridiculous little Kate Burns! She says she knows more than half of the part already, because she helped them get this up in the Vesey Street social; the idea! Everything she did was to prompt at one of the rehearsals! She is too dumpy for a queen; and she has a simpering little voice. Oh! It would be just too ridiculous for anything, and yet she is bent on it; she has talked with each one of the committee separately, and hinted that we ought to propose her. Then there's that Jennie Harmon, vexed because she hasn't been chosen for Esther. She makes all manner of fun of Essie (whom everybody says is just the one for the part), and I'm really afraid Essie will hear of it, and refuse to act; the girls are so hateful, mamma, you haven't an idea! They get so excited about things that don't go just as they want them; they burst right out with whatever is in their minds. Three of the committee went home crying to-night just because of things that they had overheard said; and I'd cry, too, if I were not so provoked. It does seem too bad when we are working for benevolence, and trying our best to make a little money, to have people go and spoil things in this way. (Jessie Morrison is fretting, too; she doesn't like her part; says her mother thinks the dress is unbecoming. 'What of it?' I asked her, somebody had to wear it, and it might as well be she as any one; well, she said her mother did not think it was exactly a proper dress to appear in, in public. So absurd!) I am just tired of the whole thing. I told Fannie to-night I would give anything if we were safely out of it all, and if I once get through I shall wash my hands of all benevolent enterprises in the future. Fannie was a poor one to talk to, though; she is so vexed because she hasn't been asked to sing a solo that she could tear everything to pieces. I'm sure I hope those library books, if we ever get them, will do a great deal of good; they ought to, such a world of trouble as they have made." Ah, well, they lived through it. It is surprising how many trials we do succeed in pushing through and coming out alive on the other side!