“Ah! What does that do?” said Mrs. Burgoyne.
“Why,” said Mrs. White hesitating, “I haven’t been—however, I think they took up the sanitation of the schools; Miss Jewett, from Sacramento, read a splendid paper about it. There’s a committee to look into that, and then last year that section planted a hundred trees. And then there’s parliamentary drill.”
“Which we all need,” said Mrs. Adams, and there was laughter.
“Then there’s the Art Department once a month,” resumed Mrs. White, “Founders’ Day, Old-Timers’ Day, and, in February, we think Judge Lindsey may address us—”
“Oh, are you doing any juvenile-court work?” said the hostess.
“We wanted his suggestions about it,” Mrs. White said. “We feel that if we could get some of the ladies interested—! Then here’s the French class once a week; German, Spanish, and the bridge club on Fridays.”
“Gracious! You use your clubhouse,” said Mrs. Burgoyne.
“Nearly every day. So come on Tuesday,” said the president winningly, “and be our guest. A Miss Carroll is to sing, and Professor Noyesmith, of Berkeley, will read a paper on: ’The City Beautiful.’ Keep that year-book; I butchered it, running through it so fast.”
“Well, just now,” Mrs. Burgoyne began a little hesitatingly, “I’m rather busy. I am at the Mail office while the girls are in school, you know, and we have laid out an enormous lot of gardening for afternoons. They never tire of gardening if I’m with them, but, of course, no children will do that sort of thing alone; and it’s doing them both so much good that I don’t want to stop it. Then they study German and Italian with me, and on Saturday have a cooking lesson. You see, my time is pretty full.”
“But a good governess would take every bit of that off your hands, me dear,” said Mrs. Apostleman.