Everybody smiled also, although nobody saw the point until the president echoed, with a pleased air of discovery, “Motion,—motion! Very good, Miss Keene.”
Then they all smiled once again, and Miss Gray told of an excellent jest made by a cousin in Boston:—
“My cousin in Boston—that is, she isn’t my real cousin, but a step-cousin by marriage—was at a concert once, and she made an awfully good joke. I don’t remember exactly now what it was, but it was awfully funny. It was something about music, and we all laughed.”
“It doesn’t seem to me,” spoke up Miss Sharp, acidly, “that Boston jokes will help the fair much; and I move you, Mrs. President,—if I don’t make a motion, I’m sure I don’t know who ever will,—that the fair be held on the 20th of April.”
“I second the motion,” promptly spoke up Miss Snob, who always seconded everything.
“It is moved and seconded,” said the president, “that the fair be held on the 20th of April; but I’m sure the 23d would suit me a great deal better.”
“Why not have it the 17th?” asked Miss Keene; “that seems to me quite late enough.”
“Oh, dear, no,” interrupted Mrs. Percy Browne, “I never could get half the things done for my department by that time. I move we have it the 30th.”
“Second the motion,” promptly responded Miss Snob.
“It is moved and seconded,” propounded Mrs. Smithe from the chair, “that the fair be held on the 30th. That seems to me an excellent time. If it be your minds, you will please to signify it. It is a vote.”