would be a long time before she, a new member, would have to read a
paper. She would have time to hear the other papers read, and to see how
it was done; and she would find it easy when her turn came. By that time
she would have some ideas; and long before she would be called upon,
she would have leisure to sit down and write out something. But a year
passed away, and the time was drawing near. She had, meanwhile, devoted
herself to her studies, and had tried to inform herself on all subjects
by way of preparation. She had consulted one of the old members of the
Club as to the choice of a subject.

"Oh, write about anything," was the answer,--"anything you have been
thinking of."

Elizabeth Eliza was forced to say she had not been thinking lately. She
had not had time. The family had moved, and there was always an
excitement about something, that prevented her sitting down to think.

"Why not write out your family adventures?" asked the old member.

Elizabeth Eliza was sure her mother would think it made them too public;
and most of the Club papers, she observed, had some thought in them. She
preferred to find an idea.

[Illustration: Elizabeth Eliza writes a paper.]

So she set herself to the occupation of thinking. She went out on
the piazza to think; she stayed in the house to think. She tried a
corner of the china-closet. She tried thinking in the cars, and lost her
pocket-book; she tried it in the garden, and walked into the strawberry
bed. In the house and out of the house, it seemed to be the same,--she