less than ninety-seven cents a yard.

The Dorcases took out their pencils, and when they multiplied the surface
of the floor by the price of the carpet per yard, each Dorcas attaining a
result entirely different from all the others, there was a shriek of
dismay, especially from the secretary, who had included in her
mathematical operation certain figures in her possession representing the
cubical contents of the church and the offending pitch of the roof,
thereby obtaining a product that would have dismayed a Croesus. Time
sped and efforts increased, but the Dorcases were at length obliged to
clip the wings of their desire and content themselves with carpeting the
pulpit and pulpit steps, the choir, and the two aisles, leaving the floor
in the pews until some future year.

How the women cut and contrived and matched that hardly-bought red
ingrain carpet, in the short December afternoons that ensued after its
purchase; so that, having failed to be ready for Thanksgiving, it could
be finished for the Christmas festivities!

They were sewing in the church, and as the last stitches were being
taken, Maria Sharp suddenly ejaculated in her impulsive fashion:--

"Wouldn't it have been just perfect if we could have had the pews
repainted before we laid the new carpet!"

"It would, indeed," the president answered; "but it will take us all
winter to pay for the present improvements, without any thought of fresh
paint. If only we had a few more men-folks to help along!"

"Or else none at all!" was Lobelia Brewster's suggestion. "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 h