Feast of the Day, 2 May

Gypsy, in Gypsy's Year at the Golden Crescent (1867) is invited to join a secret society called the "Evergreen Sisters", which is a fake name. The initials are right, but really, it stands for "Eating Society". These girls create a secret society just for the purpose of feasting every two weeks!
This is fascinating, because I've been tracking both the growth of secret societies in schools and the rise of material culture; Gypsy, in this book, is stressed out because her pledge pin for the society costs $5.00, and she's not well-off.
Most of the meetings of the E.S. aren't described, but the last one is - they're determined to make this one the best ever. I don't know exactly how many girls are here - but there are only twenty in the school, and not all belong, so I'd guess no more than eight or ten.
OK? Here goes with crazy late-night feasting: "Mellow ice-cream, daintily-shaped cream-cakes, pure white ladies' cakes, jelly-rolls that would melt in one's mouth, bananas from which the soft, green skin was bursting, strawberries wrapped in cool green leaves, rainbows of the "latest", candies in pretty painted boxes, and nobody there to say that they were poison, Dolly's delicate wafers, and rich, yellow whips beaten to solid froth - it was not a bill of fare to be despised." And then a girl brings out champagne, and another brings out cigarettes, and I was shocked! And so was the heroine, who leaves the feast - bumping into the headmistress who's on her way in. Eeep!
However, a girl runs away and tries to elope that night, and then another dies a few days later of illness, so with all the excitement the girls never really get in trouble.