ing foot.

"Disband, indeed!" she whispered sibilantly. "We'll have a tag day and
a rummage sale and I'll get up a dicker party and some theatricals.
Disband, indeed!"

At last Dr. Weston was allowed to speak.

"Ladies," he said, "I mean Madame President, I have to report to the
board--"

"Not another case of measles, I trust!" interrupted one.

"No, not a case of measles, but a case that I hope is going to prove
quite as contagious--"

"Mumps, I'll be bound!"

"No, madame! We have had a gift for the home--"

"More old faded carpets and carved walnut furniture, I wager!"

Finally Dr. Weston was able to divulge to the board of managers that
Mary Louise Burrows, Jim Hathaway's granddaughter, now Mrs. Danny
Dexter, intended to hand over to them her grandfather's old home.

Mary Louise and Josie in the next room with the door closed were able
to tell exactly the moment when the news was broken. Such a hubbub
ensued that the doctor's voice was quite drowned out.

"And now, ladies," continued Dr. Weston, "since we have several
vacancies on our board, I think we could not do better than to ask Mrs.
Dexter to fill one of those vacancies and her friend Miss Josie
O'Gorman one of the others."

There was much hemming and hawing at this proposition.

"Too young!" was the general verdict, but Dr. Weston declared that Mary
Louise was not too young to give her property to the home, and then he
hinted wisely of other things she might give. The astute old man was a
good judge of human nature, especially human nature as exemplified by a
board of women managers. He had held back the fact that Mary Louise
also intended to endow the home. He was determined to have her put on
the board first, and also her clever little friend, who had such a
quiet way of hitting the nail on the head.

With the air of conferring on Mary Louise and Josie a tremendous favor
they were finally elected to the board.

"But who is this Josie O'Gorman?" asked a smartly dressed woman, "and
why? Isn't she a kind of a washerwoman?"

"Hush!" admonished another. "Don't you know she is in the
Higgledy-Piggledy Shop with Elizabeth Wright?"

The secretary was requested to inform the two young women of the honor
conferred upon them.

"They are in my office," said Dr. Weston, "and I might just step in and
tell them myself."

"Oh, horrors!" cried one of the women. "Do you suppose they heard what
we said?"

"I never said anything but that they were too