“Lor’!” and Dinah rolled her eyes with an awe-struck look over the audience.  “I ‘spec’ some day, honey, you’s so uplifted, you’ll go soarin’ up inter de clouds and outer sight, straight ’ter kingdom come—­”

“Dinah!  I think it is time you were giving your attention to your dinner,” interposed Miss Julia, in a lofty tone.

“Y’sm; I’s gwine—­I sho’ly is’m,” retorted Dinah, spiritedly, as she straightened herself and turned with a resentful flirt of her skirts to obey.  Then glancing back over her shoulder and showing her white teeth in a broad grin, she added:  “I’s gwine ter ’gage in m’ soupy-logical, lamby-logical, pie-o-logical research; y’sm, sho!” and, striking a superior attitude, she cake-walked off the stage with a vigorous stride and regardless of ‘ole bones’ or ‘rumatism’; and the curtain was rung down upon an audience convulsed with merriment, while a voice from somewhere cried out: 

“Well done, Sadie! yo’ll take de cake, dis time, fer sho.”

Scene five showed the same room, the same spinster with her book clasped to her breast, her head thrown back, her eyes gazing aloft into vacancy.

“Oh, ye messengers of supereminent light!  Oh, ye soul-thrilling angels from realms supernal!  Draw nearer—­unfold your celestial wings and brood tenderly o’er the aspirations of this receptive heart—­this heart already upborne on waves of ecstasy and o’er-mastering joy; fulfill its psychic dreams and lift it to thine own supersensible heights”—­she breathed in an exaggerated stage whisper and continued her vague, visionary monologue, or extravaganza, until the curtain fell and brought down the house again with enthusiastic applause.

“Has anyone guessed the answer to the conundrum, or charade, or both?” inquired the president with mirthful eyes when she could make herself heard.

“Transcendentalism!” cried Clara Follet, wiping the tears from her cheeks.  “Dinah gave it away to me with her ‘is’m’ and her ‘rumatism,’ and, of course, the charade was the key to the conundrum.”

From several others came the same answer, with, the various hints or points which had suggested it.

“And now,” continued Miss Walton, “we will have the paper on the same subject from Miss Minturn, who is also the author of both conundrum and charade.”

Again there was a vigorous clapping of hands, in the midst of which the curtain was raised and Katherine appeared upon the stage, in her spinster attire, but shorn of her voluminous corkscrew curls.

She was smiling, and rosy, and bowed her thanks for the generous approval of her efforts.

As she unfolded her manuscript an expectant hush fell upon her audience, and she observed that significant and inquiring glances were exchanged between some of the members of the league.

“The paper which I have prepared,” she began, “may not prove to be just what the club may have expected from me; but it will at least show that I have given the subject assigned me some thought.