hese
formalities had consumed only a few moments and the club was ready to
fall upon its shirt waists. The sewing-machines were oiled and
uncovered, the cutting-table was cleared, every Hyacinth had her box of
sewing paraphernalia in her lap; and Miss Masters who had been half
cajoled and half forced into the management of this branch of the St.
Martha's Settlement Mission was congratulating herself upon the ease and
expedition with which her charges were learning to transact their
affairs, when the President drew a pencil from her pompadour and rapped
professionally on the table. In her daytime capacity of saleslady in a
Grand Street shoe store she would have called "cash," but as President
of the Lady Hyacinths her speech was:

"If none of you goils ain't got no more business to lay before the
meetin' a movement to adjoin is in order."

"I move we adjoin an git to woik," said Mamie Kidansky promptly. Only
three buttonholes and the whalebones which would keep the collar well up
behind the ears lay between her and the triumphant rearing of her shirt
waist. Hence her zeal.

Susie Meyer was preparing to second the motion. As secretary she
disapproved of much discussion. She was always threatening to resign her
portfolio vowing, with some show of reason, "I never would 'a' joined
your old Hyacinths Shirt-Waists if I'd a' known I was goin' to have to
write down all the foolish talk you goils felt like givin' up."

It seemed therefore that the business meeting was closed, when a voice
from the opposite side of the table broke in with:

"Say, Rosie, why can't us goils give a play?"

"Ah Jennie, you make me tired," protested the Secretary.

"An' you're out of order anyway," was the President's dictum.

"Where?" cried Jennie wildly, clutching her pompadour with one hand and
the back of her belt with the other, "where, what's the matter with me?"

"Go 'way back an' sit down," was the Secretary's advice, "Rosie meant
you're out of parliamentry order. We got a motion on the table an' it's
too late for you to butt in on it. This meetin' is goin' to adjoin."

But Jennie was the spokesman of a newly-born party and her supporters
were not going to allow her to be silenced. Even those Lady Hyacinths
who had not been admitted to earlier consultations took kindly to the
suggestion when they heard it.

"I don't care whether she's out of order or not," one ambitious Hyacinth
declared, "I think it would be just too lovely for an