church but Nanny stayed outside and held open court under the big horse
chestnuts in front of the church door.

She had left the olive groves and almond groves, the thick roses and
the blue waters of Italy, in order to be at home in time to see her
native town wrapped up in its fragrant lilac glory.

She stayed out now, her arms full of lilac plumes, watching the little
groups of her townspeople coming down the village streets toward the
church whose bell was tolling so sweetly through the warm, spring air.

Here came Mrs. Dustin with Peter and Joe Baldwin with his two boys and
Colonel Stratton with his sweet-faced wife. From the opposite
direction came the Reverend Alexander Campbell with his wife in black
silk, his sister in gray silk, his elderly niece in blue silk and his
wife's second cousin in lavender. There was Joshua Stillman and his
quiet daughter, Uncle Tony and Uncle Tony's brother William, with his
four girls and Seth Curtis' wife, Ruth.

Seth never went to church, having a profound scorn for the clergy. But
he always fixed things so his wife could go. He said ministers were
poor business men, selfish husbands and proverbially poor fathers, from
all he'd seen of them. Somehow Seth was a singularly unfortunate man
in the matter of seeing things. But there was no denying the fact that
he was an unusual husband. He had been caught time and again by his
men friends and neighbors on a Sunday morning with one of his wife's
aprons tied about him, holding the baby in one arm, while he stirred
something on the stove with the other, and in various other ways
superintending his household while Ruth was at church. But neither
jeers nor sympathy ever upset him.