ers as branches. Miss Kingsley is the
patron, and she has written on the first page:

'A UNION FOR SELF-CULTURE AND
PHILANTHROPY
_Motto_:--BEING AND DOING'."

"Oh, goodness! What does that mean? I'm a duffer at long words,"
protested Audrey. "Can't you put it into English?"

"Well, it means we've got to do something for ourselves and something
for other people too."

"That's simpler."

"We've plenty to choose from out of nineteen branches," said Nellie.

"Don't you think it would hit the mark if we had a Games Club to include
hockey, cricket, and tennis, an Entertainments Club to get up plays and
concerts, and a Nature Study Union that could absorb the Research
Society and the Natural History League both together. These would be for
ourselves. Then for the 'Philanthropy' side, we could keep on the Jack
Tar Club, and let the Needlework Society and the Home Arts Guild send
anything they make to that."

"What's the 'Jack Tar Club', please?" asked Claudia, looking up from
her crochet.

"It's to give Christmas presents to the sailors and their wives and
children. We packed off a huge big box to Portsmouth last year. Lily
Anderson and Lottie Watson and Helen Stanley made some gorgeous things,
and revelled in doing them."

"And the rest of us toiled and groaned and grumbled, and ended by
borrowing and begging from our long-suffering relations," twinkled
Patsie. "Don't think you'll keep that crochet edging for yourself, Dame
Claudia! It'll be commandeered to go round a tray-cloth for a Mrs. Jack
Tar!"

"I shall probably never finish enough of it even to edge a d'oyley,"
admitted Claudia calmly.

"Look here, this is side-tracking!" said Lorraine, rapping her pencil on
the desk. "Please to remember that this is a Committee Meeting, and you
must speak to the Chair. Won't anybody make a proposition?"

"I propose that we have what you've just suggested, then: a 'Games
Club', an 'Entertainments Club', a 'Nature Study Union' and the 'Jack
Tar Club'," said Dorothy.

"And quite enough, too," murmured Patsie.

"I'll second it!" declared Nellie.

"I'd like to add an amendment," said Lorraine. "I want to suggest that
we have a School Social every month, where we can show specimens and
drawings and photos."

Vivien pulled a face of discouragement.

"We've got enough on," she urged. "Leave us our Saturdays."

"We needn't have them on Saturdays. They could be from four to five on
Wednesdays. I t