"Oh, dear," replied Mrs. Thornton, "don't ask me. I'm too tired to think. Whatever name is chosen will suit me."
Just then Fanny Tweedie rushed into the room with the energy of an infant cyclone. Mrs. Tweedie gazed in astonishment at her pretty, light-headed, light-hearted, impulsive daughter, as though her entrance was out of the ordinary.
"Why, Fanny!" she exclaimed. "What has detained you?"
"I've been over to Gertrude's to see her wedding things," Fanny replied, in a rather disrespectful manner, without noticing who was present, and then, in her quick, impulsive way, continued: "They're just lovely! Really, I never saw such awfully swell things before anywhere. She ought to be happy if any girl ever was. I couldn't begin to tell you about them in a week; and— Oh, I heard the worst stories about Billy Fl—!" A warning look on her mother's face stopped Fanny on the edge of a precipice. But Billy Fl—'s mother guessed—so did the others. Mrs. Tweedie came quickly to the rescue.
"Fanny," she said, "we are trying to find a name for our club; please save your stories for another time. Mrs. Stout, have you any suitable name in mind?"
"How would 'The Manville Woman's Club' do?" replied Mrs. Stout.
"Very good," said Mrs. Tweedie, "only I am prejudiced in regard to the name of our town; it is so suggestive of the other sex."
"Well," replied Mrs. Stout, "we've all tried, now what do you think we ought to call ourselves, Mis' Tweedie?"