"It's havin' so few that keeps us all stirred up.

If there wa'n't any anywheres, we'd have women deacons and carpenters and painters, and get along first rate; for somehow the supply o' women always holds out, same as it does with caterpillars an' flies an' grasshoppers!" Everybody laughed, although Maria Sharp asserted that she for one was not willing to be called a caterpillar simply because there were too many women in the universe.
"I never noticed before how shabby and scarred and dirty the pews are," said the minister's wife as she looked at them reflectively.
"I've been thinking all the afternoon of the story about the poor old woman and the lily," and Nancy Wentworth's clear voice broke into the discussion.

"Do you remember some one gave her a stalk of Easter lilies and she set them in a glass pitcher on the kitchen table?
After looking at them for a few minutes, she got up from her chair and washed the pitcher until the glass shone.

Sitting down again, she glanced at the little window.

It would never do; she had forgotten how dusty and blurred it was, and she took her cloth and burnished the panes.