ything to have a
play. They have 'em all the time over to Rivington Street an' down to
the Educational Alliance."

"Rebecca Einstein," said the Secretary darkly, "if you're goin' to fire
off your face about plays an' the Educational Alliances you can keep
your own minnits, that's all! Do ye think I'm goin' to write down your
foolishness? Well, I ain't."

Again the President plied her gavel. "Goils," she remonstrated, "this
ain't no way to act. Say, Miss Masters," she went on, "I guess the whole
lot of us is out of order now. What would you do about it if you was me?"

"I should suggest," Miss Masters answered, "that the motion to adjourn
be carried and that the whole club go into committee on the question
raised by Miss Meyer."

"I move that we take our woik into committee with us," cried Miss
Kidansky, not to be deflected from her buttonholes. And from such humble
beginnings the production of Hamlet by the Lady Hyacinths sprang.

Hamlet was not their first choice. It was not even their tenth and to
the end it was not the unanimous choice. During the preliminary stages
of the dramatic fever Miss Masters preserved that strict neutrality
which marks the successful Settlement worker. She would help--oh, surely
she would help--the Hyacinths, but she would not lead them. She had
never questioned their taste in the shape and color of their shirt
waists. Some horrid garments had resulted but to her they represented
"self expression," and as such gave her more pleasure than any servile
following of her advice could have done. She soon discovered that the
latitude in the shirt waist field is far exceeded by that in the
dramatic and she discovered too, that the Lady Hyacinths, though they
seldom visited the theatre had strong digestions where plays were
concerned.

"East Lynne" was warmly advocated until some one discovered a
grandmother who had seen it in her youth. Then:

"Ah gee!" remarked the Lady Hyacinths, "we ain't no grave snatchers. We
ain't goin' to dig up no dead ones. Say Miss Masters, ain't there no new
plays we could give?"

Miss Masters referred them to the public library, but not many plays are
obtainable in book form, and the next two meetings were devoted to the
plays of Ibsen, Bernard Shaw, Vaughan Moody. When Miss Masters descried
this literature in the hands of the now openly mutinous Secretary she
felt the time had come to interfere with the "self activity" of her
charges. She promptly confiscated