“We might get him to make a barrel of it for the Sunday-school picnic,” said Marcella, brightly, over her fourth cup.  “If it contains only a little tea, perhaps the effect upon the children would not be deleterious.”

“We’ll try it,” said Aunt Delia, reaching for the ladle at sight of empty cups in the hands of Mrs. Judge Robinson and Mrs. Westley Keyts. “I’ll furnish the cherries and the sugar and the tea.”

How it came about was never quite understood by the ladies, but the true and formal note of a Ladies’ Home Study Club was never once struck that afternoon.  Madam the President did not call the meeting to order, the minutes of the last meeting are unread to this day, and a motion to adjourn never became necessary.

It had been thought wisest to keep entirely away from poetry at this meeting, and the paper for the day, to have been read by Marcella Eubanks, was “The Pathos of Charles Dickens.”  Marcella had taken unusual pains in its preparation, bringing with her two volumes of the author from which to read at the right moment the deaths of Little Nell and Paul Dombey.  She had practised these until she could make her voice quaver effectively, and she had looked forward to a genuine ovation when she sat down.

[Illustration:  “WE MIGHT GET HIM TO MAKE A BARREL OF IT FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL PICNIC.”]

If it is clearly understood, then, that no one thought of calling for the paper, that even its proud author felt the hours gliding by without any poignant regret, it should be seen that the occasion had strangely come to be one of pure and joyous relaxation, with never an instructive or cultured or studious moment.

There was talk of domestic concerns, sprightly town gossip, mirth, wit, and anecdotes.  Aunt Delia McCormick told her parrot story, which was risque, even when no gentlemen were present, for the parrot said “damn it!” in the course of his surprisingly human repartee under difficulties.

Mrs. Westley Keyts, the bars being down, thereupon began another parrot story.  But Miss Eubanks, who had observed that all parrot stories have “damn” in them, suddenly conceived that matters had gone far enough in that direction.  Affecting not to have heard Mrs. Keyts’s opening of “A returned missionary made a gift of a parrot to two elderly maiden ladies—­” Marcella led the would-be anecdotist to the punch-bowl, and, under the cover of operations there, spoke to her in an undertone.  Mrs. Keyts said that the thing had been printed right out on the funny page of “Hearth and Home,” but over the cup of punch that Marcella pressed upon her, she consented to forego it on account of the minister’s wife being present.

There were other anecdotes, however; not of a parrot character, but chiefly of funny sayings of the little ones at home.  Mrs. Judge Robinson, with the artistic mendacity of your true raconteur, accredited to her own four-year-old a speech about the stars being holes in the floor of heaven, although it was said of this gem in “Harper’s Drawer,” where she had read it, that “the following good one comes to us from a lady subscriber in the well-known city of X——.”