“You will get along as well as I did when I was president of the Shakespearean Society. Didn’t we read Robert’s Rules of Order together? I shall have to learn the duties of a secretary. It seems funny, but with all the church societies I have been in I’ve never been a secretary, and in this society, recording and corresponding secretaries are one. They usually wanted me to be the president, or treasurer. I suppose they thought they could trust the preacher’s daughter!”
“You will have the old books to go by. I imagine that we can remember what the seniors did last year after we get started in.”
“Hurry up, Lilian,” said Hilary, turning back, “time to begin.”
“Don’t you love this hall?” asked Lilian of both girls. “It was fun working for the Shakespearean Society and getting our new furniture and all, but I believe this seems more artistic because it is older. The tone of the piano is not as good, though. We must have a new one, don’t you think so, Hilary?”
“This hall is a better, larger room with more windows,” said Cathalina. “It was possible in the first place to make a prettier hall of it, and, yes, the furniture is more handsome than we thought we could afford when we started the academy society. The older society really ought to be the more dignified.”
“We didn’t think so when we were in the academy!”
“No, indeed. How we do change!”
No embarrassment could ever make Cathalina awkward. The girls were always sure to be proud of Cathalina’s manner and language either in public or private. Isabel was as devoted to Cathalina as ever and felt an added gratitude since Cathalina had saved her, as she said, “from a watery grave” the year before. Cathalina herself was pleased that the girls had chosen her their president, and had made detailed preparations having in her hand a neat little outline of the affairs to be put through tonight. There was to be no regular program until the new members were brought in at the next meeting, but if the business did not take up the whole time, Evelyn Calvert had promised to give a “reading” in the dialect for which she was famous in the school, and Eloise was to sing. Among girls of so many gifts, the program committee did not have a very difficult task. The only trouble was to make sure that the girls prepared for their duties, for it was easy to be lazy about society affairs when there were so many pressing school duties all the time.
Pretty and dainty Cathalina looked when, after the ceremony with which the officers were initiated, she sat in state in the big chair. “The Secretary will now call the roll,” said she, whereupon Hilary called the names of the members from what she now called the “Sibylline Books.” The treasurer was called upon for a report of the money left over in the treasury from last year, and Pauline Tracy reported a comfortable little sum. A report was called from the chairman of the program committee, Lilian responding.
“Madam President,” said Lilian, “and members of the Whittier Society, nothing has been done yet except the arrangements for the first program at the initiation of the new members. You will remember that it was decided last year to complete a program for one-third of the year, then to pass on the programs, changed as they sometimes have to be when some one fails to serve, to the next program committee, with the list of those members who have not yet been on duty. I would like to remind the society, that every member is supposed to be on duty several times through the year and that the duties will be varied. For instance, if the musical members should only have to furnish music, they would miss the training in speaking before the society, or debating.”