stockings. Why, I tell you I'm afraid to keep Ruth from church, afraid
that if she loses her belief in a married woman's heaven she'll leave
me for somebody better or get so discouraged that she'll just hold her
breath and die."

So Ruth Curtis went to church every Sunday. And Seth saw to it that
she always looked pretty. This particular Lilac Sunday she was wearing
the sprigged dimity that Seth bought her over in Spring Road at
Williamson's spring sale.

Softly the bell tolled and the last stragglers came hurrying leisurely,
every soul carrying the lovely fragrant plumes so that the church would
be sweet with the breath of spring. Later, these armfuls of beauty
would be packed into huge boxes and shipped to the city hospitals to
gladden pain-racked bodies and weary hearts.

Nanny Ainslee was still outside waiting for Grandma Wentworth. Lilac
Sunday Nanny always waited for Grandma and always sat with her, because
of a certain story that Grandma had told her once when the lamps were
not yet lit and the soft summer moonlight lay in windowed squares on
Grandma's sitting room floor. Nanny began to inquire of the last
comers. But Tommy and Alice Winston, still bridey and shy, said they
had seen nothing of her, and even Roger Allan supposed of course that
she must be in her favorite pew, known to the oldtimers as Inspiration
Corner. For it had been observed that all ministers sooner or later
delivered their discourses to Grandma Wentworth. They were always sure
of her undivided attention. Other people's eyes and minds might
wander, some might be even openly bored, but Grandma's uplifted face
was always kindly and encouraging, even though the sermon was
hopelessly jumbled. She was the surest, severest critic and yet each