ncluding 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.

“They can’t even be scrubbed for less than fifteen or twenty dollars, for I thought of that and asked Mrs. Simpson yesterday, and she said twenty cents a pew was the cheapest she could do it for.”

“We’ve done everything else,” said Nancy Wentworth, with a twitch of her thread; “why don’t we scrub the pews?  There’s nothing in the orthodox creed to forbid, is there?”

“Speakin’ o’ creeds,” and here old Mrs. Sargent paused in her work, “Elder Ransom from Acreville stopped with us last night, an’ he tells me they recite the Euthanasian Creed every few Sundays in the Episcopal Church.  I didn’t want him to know how ignorant I was, but I looked up the word in the dictionary.  It means easy death, and I can’t see any sense in that, though it’s a terrible long creed, the Elder says, an’ if it’s any longer ’n ourn, I should think anybody might easy die learnin’ it!”

“I think the word is Athanasian,” ventured the minister’s wife.

“Elder Ransom’s always plumb full o’ doctrine,” asserted Miss Brewster, pursuing the subject.  “For my part, I’m glad he preferred Acreville to our place.  He was so busy bein’ a minister, he never got round to bein’ a human creeter.  Whe