"Mumps, I'll be bound!"
"No, madame! We have had a gift for the home—"
"More old faded carpets and carved walnut furniture, I wager!"
Finally Dr. Weston was able to divulge to the board of managers that Mary Louise Burrows, Jim Hathaway's granddaughter, now Mrs. Danny Dexter, intended to hand over to them her grandfather's old home.
Mary Louise and Josie in the next room with the door closed were able to tell exactly the moment when the news was broken. Such a hubbub ensued that the doctor's voice was quite drowned out.
"And now, ladies," continued Dr. Weston, "since we have several vacancies on our board, I think we could not do better than to ask Mrs. Dexter to fill one of those vacancies and her friend Miss Josie O'Gorman one of the others."
There was much hemming and hawing at this proposition.
"Too young!" was the general verdict, but Dr. Weston declared that Mary Louise was not too young to give her property to the home, and then he hinted wisely of other things she might give. The astute old man was a good judge of human nature, especially human nature as exemplified by a board of women managers. He had held back the fact that Mary Louise also intended to endow the home. He was determined to have her put on the board first, and also her clever little friend, who had such a quiet way of hitting the nail on the head.
With the air of conferring on Mary Louise and Josie a tremendous favor they were finally elected to the board.
"But who is this Josie O'Gorman?" asked a smartly dressed woman, "and why? Isn't she a kind of a washerwoman?"