Perhaps the best known of his plays was “The Merchant of Venice,” having a beautiful love story and a fine appreciation of a woman’s brains, which a woman’s club, even those who did not care to commit themselves on the question of suffrage, ought to appreciate. (Laughter.) Mrs. Jenson was sure that she, for one, would love to be like Portia.  The play was about a Jew named Shylock, and he didn’t want his daughter to marry a Venice gentleman named Antonio——­

Mrs. Leonard Warren, a slender, gray, nervous woman, president of the Thanatopsis and wife of the Congregational pastor, reported the birth and death dates of Byron, Scott, Moore, Burns; and wound up: 

“Burns was quite a poor boy and he did not enjoy the advantages we enjoy today, except for the advantages of the fine old Scotch kirk where he heard the Word of God preached more fearlessly than even in the finest big brick churches in the big and so-called advanced cities of today, but he did not have our educational advantages and Latin and the other treasures of the mind so richly strewn before the, alas, too ofttimes inattentive feet of our youth who do not always sufficiently appreciate the privileges freely granted to every American boy rich or poor.  Burns had to work hard and was sometimes led by evil companionship into low habits.  But it is morally instructive to know that he was a good student and educated himself, in striking contrast to the loose ways and so-called aristocratic society-life of Lord Byron, on which I have just spoken.  And certainly though the lords and earls of his day may have looked down upon Burns as a humble person, many of us have greatly enjoyed his pieces about the mouse and other rustic subjects, with their message of humble beauty—­I am so sorry I have not got the time to quote some of them.”

Mrs. George Edwin Mott gave ten minutes to Tennyson and Browning.

Mrs. Nat Hicks, a wry-faced, curiously sweet woman, so awed by her betters that Carol wanted to kiss her, completed the day’s grim task by a paper on “Other Poets.”  The other poets worthy of consideration were Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Gray, Mrs. Hemans, and Kipling.

Miss Ella Stowbody obliged with a recital of “The Recessional” and extracts from “Lalla Rookh.”  By request, she gave “An Old Sweetheart of Mine” as encore.

Gopher Prairie had finished the poets.  It was ready for the next week’s labor:  English Fiction and Essays.

Mrs. Dawson besought, “Now we will have a discussion of the papers, and I am sure we shall all enjoy hearing from one who we hope to have as a new member, Mrs. Kennicott, who with her splendid literary training and all should be able to give us many pointers and—­many helpful pointers.”

Carol had warned herself not to be so “beastly supercilious.”  She had insisted that in the belated quest of these work-stained women was an aspiration which ought to stir her tears.  “But they’re so self-satisfied.  They think they’re doing Burns a favor.  They don’t believe they have a ‘belated quest.’  They’re sure that they have culture salted and hung up.”  It was out of this stupor of doubt that Mrs. Dawson’s summons roused her.  She was in a panic.  How could she speak without hurting them?