ent away considerably
disgusted. She called about fifty of our splendidest ladies together at
the residence of one of them, and told them what the ladies of
Eastern cities were doing in the study of higher arts. She elaborated
considerably on the study of Norwegian literature, ceramics, bric-a-brac
and so forth, and asked for an expression of the ladies present. One
lady said she was willing to go into anything that would tend to elevate
the tone of society, and make women better qualified for helpmates to
their husbands, but she didn't want any Norwegian literature in hers.
She said her husband ran for an office once and the whole gang of
Norwegian voters went back on him and he was everlastingly scooped.

The Boston lady held up her hands in holy horror, and was going to
explain to the speaker how she was off her base, when another lady got
up and said she wanted to take the full course or nothing. She wanted
to be posted in ancient literature and ceramics. She had studied ceramics
some already, and had got a good deal of information. She had found that
in case of whooping cough, goose oil rubbed on the throat and lungs was
just as good as it was in case of croup, and she felt that with a good
teacher any lady would learn much that would be of incalculable value,
and she, for one, was going for the whole hog or none.

The Boston lady saved herself from fainting by fanning herself
vigorously, and was about to show the two ladies that they had a wrong
idea of aesthetics, when a lady from the West Side, who had just been
married, got up and said she felt that we were all too ignorant of
aesthetics, and they should take every opportunity to become better
informed. She said when she first went to keeping house she couldn't
tell baking powder that had alum in it from the pure article, and she
had nearly ruined her husband's stomach before she learned anything.
And speaking of bric-a-brac, she felt that every lady should learn to
economize, by occasionally serving a picked up dinner, of bric-a-brac
that would otherwise be wasted.

The Boston lady found she could not speak understandingly, so she
left-her chair and went around to the different groups of ladies, who
were talking earnestly, to get them interested. The first group of four
that she broke in on were talking of the best way to renovate seal-skin
cloaks that had been moth eaten. One lady said that she had tried all
the aesthetic insect powder that was advertised i