Mary Louise and Josie OGorman | Page 5

few moments. I can't tell you the happiness I feel in being
able to inform these ladies of our good fortune."
The board was trying to get in session. The girls, waiting in the office,
could hear a steady hum of conversation with an occasional sharp rap

of the gavel when the president evidently had something to say herself.
"Sounds more like an afternoon tea than the deliberations of an august
body," said Josie.
But at last the meeting was called to order, the minutes were read, the
treasurer's report made and the various committees called on for a
reckoning. All this was accomplished with much talk and many
interruptions. The treasurer's report brought forth a groan. There was
little money left in the treasury and much was needed in the way of
equipment.
"I see nothing for it but to give up," said one lugubrious member.
"Dorfield doesn't take enough interest to support the home and so
there's an end of it."
"That would come under new business," suggested the president. "We
must get through with what is on the carpet first," consulting a small
book on parliamentary law.
"Well, there is no use in staying here if we are going to have to give
up," spake the lugubrious one. "All of this talk is foolish if we are
going to disband."
"Disband, nothing!" broke in Mrs. Wright, whose hands were busily
employed knitting a sweater for one of her girls while her eyes were
glancing from person to person. Her foot tapped constantly while her
knitting needles flew. One felt that she was doing some kind of work
with that tapping foot.
"Disband, indeed!" she whispered sibilantly. "We'll have a tag day and
a rummage sale and I'll get up a dicker party and some theatricals.
Disband, indeed!"
At last Dr. Weston was allowed to speak.
"Ladies," he said, "I mean Madame President, I have to report to the
board--"

"Not another case of measles, I trust!" interrupted one.
"No, not a case of measles, but a case that I hope is going to prove quite
as contagious--"
"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?"
"Hush!" admonished another. "Don't you know she is in the
Higgledy-Piggledy Shop with Elizabeth Wright?"
The secretary was requested to inform the two young women of the
honor conferred upon them.
"They are in my office," said Dr. Weston, "and I might just step in and
tell them myself."
"Oh, horrors!" cried one of the women. "Do you suppose they heard
what we said?"
"I never said anything but that they were too young. Nobody could
object to that."
"And I said board work might prove too arduous for them."
"And I said our board was too big as it was."
"I was for them all the time."
"And I!"
"And I!"
CHAPTER III
MARY LOUISE TELLS A STORY
The members of the board need not have concerned themselves in
regard to the waiting girls. Josie and Mary Louise had been fully
occupied. At the moment that the hubbub had arisen, marking the time
when Dr. Weston had made his announcement, there had been a sharp
tap