Mrs. Sally Jones Sampson and her clique in truth had put it there, scribbling it hastily on a bit of paper secured from those young girl pages, Mrs, Sampson's clique including Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Grosvenor, and, yes, Mrs. Wistar, a very bright spot on either cheek, torn from the cause of her sister Juanita by the compelling magic of that call to culture.
"It is moved," read Cousin Anna Tomlinson stumblingly, and continuing to shift her glasses to keep the angle "that the purpose of this organization of women be for the furthering of its members in the arts, including music and literature, and indirectly the community in which it lives——"
This being seconded by loud acclaim, it was promptly put to the vote and adopted with applause, before it was realized Mrs. Tomlinson was still on her feet and still by the aid of her pince-nez endeavoring to complete her motion.
"—and further that the name of this organization be The Woman's Culture Club of Blankington."
Mrs. Wistar, an even brighter spot on either cheek, was on her feet at this. Truly a star too long eclipsed, she spun madly in this sky of sudden opportunity. Auntie next her, dear soul, sought to restrain her. "At least act as if you remembered Juanita," she begged in a cautious whisper, "if only for the looks of the thing, Lavinia."
But Mrs. Wistar shook Ann Eliza's hand off her arm. She had scented culture and it had fired her brain. She even would hold them to culture's finer distinctions. "I rise to deplore Mrs. Tomlinson's use of the word woman. And would suggest that in its place she substitute the customary and more pleasing word, lady."
Mrs. Jinnie Cumming at that last reseating of her old self had shown fatigue. But at this she emerged again, reached out a veined and withered hand for a grip on the wrist of her nearest neighbor and pulled herself to her feet. Shrewd and dry she gazed around. Her old eyes ran appraisingly over the faces of that assemblage. With here and there a sophisticated one, as in the cases of Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Carter, for the most these ninety women's faces were naïve, credulous, pleased, the faces of children grown to maturity, eager, excited.
Mrs. Jinnie Cumming took her time in surveying them. Ninety women, most of whom she considered fools, if one believed her statements, couldn't hurry her! She even communed with herself. "Our mothers and our grandmothers were women with women's capacities. Nobody shielded them as these weakling creatures have been shielded. The world and its brutal facts met 'em square, and sophisticated 'em. I go back eighty years myself and I remember 'em."
Whereupon she spoke. "I rise for two things, ladies. The first is to put myself on record with Miss McRanney, Mrs. Bruce and Mrs. Higginson and to say that by the platform you've just adopted you've set the impulse among you back into dilettantism by—who shall say how many years? And next to say that I take issue with the last speaker who would have the word lady substituted for that of woman in the name of this organization. It is my feeling the day of the lady, so denominated, is passing, and the hour of woman is come."
"Great old girl," said Preston Cannon when he heard about it afterwards. But that was later.