ry!" Mrs. Delancy exclaimed reprovingly, although
she, too, was compelled to smile at the audacity of the achievement.
"But," she added meditatively, "I really don't see what it all amounts
to, anyhow?"

"I suspect that you didn't listen attentively to the president's
speech," Cicily railed.

"I listened," Mrs. Delancy declared, firmly. "In spite of that fact, my
dear, what does it all mean? Down deep, are you serious in some things
I have heard you say, lately?"

"Oh, yes, I'm serious enough," was the answer, spoken with a hint of
bitterness in the tone. "That is, I'm seriously bored--desperately
bored, for the matter of that. I tell you, Aunt Emma, a married woman
must have something to do. As for me, why, I have absolutely nothing to
do. Those other women, too, or at least most of them, have nothing to
do, and they are all desperately bored. Well, that's the cause of the
new club. Unfortunately, the club, too, has nothing to do--nothing at
all--and so, the club, too, is desperately bored.... Oh, if only I could
give that club an object--a real object!"

Mrs. Delancy murmured some remonstrance over the new enthusiasm that
sounded in her niece's voice while uttering the aspiration in behalf of
the Civitas Society; but the bride paid no heed.

"Yes," she mused, straightening the arches of her brows in a frown of
perplexity, "it could be made something, with an object. I myself could
be made something, with an object--something worth while to strive
for.... Heavens, how I wish I had something to do!"

This iconoclastic fashion of speech was not patiently endured by the
orthodox aunt, who listened to the plaint with marked displeasure.

"A bride with a young husband and a beautiful home," she remarked
tartly, "seeking something to do! In my day, a bride was about the
busiest and the happiest person in the community." Her voice took on a
tone of tender reminiscence, and a little color crept into the wrinkled
pallor of her cheeks, and she perked her head a bit coquettishly, in a
youthful manner not unbecoming, as she continued: "I remember how
happy--oh, how happy!--I was then!"

Cicily, however, displayed a rather shocking lack of sympathy for this
emotion on the part of her relative. She was, in fact, selfishly
absorbed in her own concerns, after the manner of human nature, whether
young or old.

"Yes," she said, almost spitefully, "I have noticed how always old
married ladies continually remember the happy tim