was! Do you know what we are going
to do? We're going out into that howling desolation that Mary has
probably left in the kitchen, and we're going to see if we can find a
couple of clean glasses, and we're going to have a glass of beer apiece
and a ham sandwich and a piece of the pie that's left over from dinner.
You don't know what's the matter with you, but I do! You're starved!
You're as hungry as you can be, aren't you now?"

Lydia had sunk into a chair during this speech and was now regarding him
fixedly, her hands clasped between her knees. At his final appeal to
her, she closed her eyes. "Yes," she said with a long breath; "yes, I
am."

CHAPTER XXVIII

"THE AMERICAN MAN"

A ripple from the surging wave of culture which, for some years, had
been sweeping over the women's clubs of the Middle West, began to
agitate the extremely stationary waters of Endbury social life. The
Women's Literary Club felt that, as the long-established intellectual
authority of the town, it should somehow join in the new movement. The
organization of this club dated back to a period now comparatively
remote. Mrs. Emery, who had been a charter member, had never been more
genuinely puzzled by Dr. Melton's eccentricities than when he had
received with a yell of laughter her announcement that she had just
helped to form a "literary club," which would be the "most exclusive
social organization" in Endbury. It had lived up to this expectation. To
belong to it meant much, and both Paul and Flora Burgess had been
gratified when, on her mother's resignation, Lydia had been elected to
the vacant place.

This close corporation, composed of ladies in the very inner circle,
felt keenly the stimulating consciousness of its importance in the
higher life of the town, and had too much civic pride to allow Endbury
to lag behind the other towns in Ohio. Columbus women, owing to the
large German population of the city, were getting a reputation for being
musical; Cincinnati had always been artistic; Toledo had literary
aspirations; Cleveland went in for civic improvement. The leading
spirits of the Woman's Literary Club of Endbury cast about for some
other sphere of interest to annex as their very own property.

They were hesitating whether to undertake a campaign of municipal
house-cleaning, or to devote themselves to the study of the sonnet form
in English verse, when an unusual opportunity for distinction opened
before them. The daughter o