“If we can only get those two,” said President Jenny Barton, “our club is made.”
“They are so good, they’ll spoil the fun,” said Mamie Smythe.
“For shame!” said Martha Dodd. “You don’t suppose the daughter of a missionary would join a club of which good girls could not be members!”
“Or the cousin of so famous a man as Kane, the Arctic explorer,” said Sophy Kane.
“Don’t dispute, girls; we seem to spend half our time wrangling,” and the president knocked, with what she made answer for the speaker’s gavel, noisily on the table. “I nominate our vice-president, Miss Underwood, to inform these young ladies of their having been chosen, and to report from them at our next meeting.
“Is the nomination accepted?”
“Ay! ay!” from the club.
In accordance with this request, Kate Underwood had interviewed Marion and Dorothy secretly, and had received from both a positive refusal. 57
“I have no time for secret societies,” said Dorothy with a good-natured laugh. “I want twice as many hours for my studies. Thank you, all the same, Kate.”
“Secret society! what is that?” asked Marion. “What is it secret for? What do you do in it that you don’t want to have known? I don’t like the secret part of it. My father used to tell me about the secret societies in Yale College, and they were full of boys’ scrapes. He nearly got turned out of college for his part in one of them; and if I should get turned out from here, it would break his heart. No, thank you, I’d better not.”