“M’hm. Well, she got ready to go out with me, and just as we were ready to start she was called out of the room. Her boots were all in the closet, and I—well, somehow I just happened to be near the door, it was ajar, and I stooped down to look at the maker’s name on them, when—oh, girls, the door behind me suddenly flew open!” “Oh, my goodness, it was Marie herself! What did—” “No, it was the maid. She said: ‘Will you please tell Miss Marie, when she comes in, that Cashly has sent up for the pair of boots she didn’t take. The boy is waiting in the hall.’” “Well, I never,” said the blue-eyed girl. “But I’ve always said that if I sent to Paris for my boots I’d have better looking ones than _she_ gets!” “But then Marie gets a great deal for her money, dear, even if the boots themselves are not of a superior quality,” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “Very true. By the way, who went to Marie’s tea yesterday?” said the girl with the dimple in her chin; “I did not. Since the founding of this club I have cared less and less for gossip and society, and—” “Then you didn’t mind not receiving an invitation to Marie’s after all!” said the brown-eyed blonde. “I must tell her that. She said yesterday that she didn’t expect you to speak to her for a month.” “By the way,” said the girl with the Roman nose, hastily, “Dick made rather a good suggestion yesterday. He said why not have a phonograph, or even a stenographer, in the room while we are discussing a topic; then we could have copies made, and—” “That reminds me,” said the president, and she rapped loudly for order. “Girls, do be quiet. We have a very important question to decide to-day. A number of men have expressed a desire to become members of this club, and—” “I vote against it,” said the girl with the Roman nose. “We can all express our real opinions now, knowing they will go no further, whereas—” “No club man can ever keep a secret,” broke in the girl with the dimple in her chin. “As for us, we would die rather than divulge—” “They are so curious, too,” broke in the girl with the classic profile. “We have all talked so much about our meetings that they want to know how they are conducted, that is all.” “Yes, that is just it,” said the brown-eyed blonde, “and once in they would spoil all the originality of it by having rules and all that. Then they’d go away and say that we couldn’t get along without them.” “The idea!” said the president, “when that’s the very reason I set our time of meeting in the afternoon!” “Look here,” said the girl with the eyeglasses, “of course we don’t want to offend them. Why not have a ‘man’s day’ once in a while?” “So we might,” said the president; “but we had better wait until we get all our new things. Well, I suppose, since we are all agreed, that we had better not waste time in voting on it. I’m awfully glad to see you here, Elise; I was afraid you would not be able to come.”