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. Then she
scoured the table, then the floor, then blackened the stove before she
sat down to her knitting. And of course the lily had done it all, just
by showing, in its whiteness, how grimy everything else was."

The minister's wife who had been in Edgewood only a few months, looked
admiringly at Nancy's bright face, wondering that five-and-thirty years
of life, including ten of school-teaching, had done so little to mar its
serenity. "The lily story is as true as the gospel!" she exclaimed, "and
I can see how one thing has led you to another in making the church
comfortable. But my husband says that two coats of paint on the pews
would cost a considerable sum."

"How about cleaning them? I don't believe they've had a good hard
washing since the flood." The suggestion came from Deacon Miller's wife
to the president.