thers have. That's right."

"'Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory,'" Mrs. Armadale's
voice was here heard to say.

"Yes, I know, mother, you have old-fashioned ideas," said Mrs. Marx;
"but the world ain't as it used to be when you was a girl. Now
everybody's puttin' steam on; and churches and Sunday schools as well
as all the rest. We have organs, and choirs, and concerts, and
celebrations, and fairs, and festivals; and if we don't go with the
crowd, they'll leave us behind, you see."

"I don't believe in it all!" said Mrs. Armadale.

"Well, mother, we've got to take the world as we find it. Now the
children all through the village are all agog with the story of what
the yellow church is goin' to do; and if the white church don't do
somethin', they'll all run t'other way--that you may depend on.
Children are children."

"I sometimes think the grown folks are children," said the old lady.

"Well, we ought to be children," said Mrs. Seelye; "I am sure we all
know that. But Mr. Seelye thought this was the only thing we could do."

"There comes in the second difficulty, Mrs. Seelye," said Lois. "We
cannot do it."

"I don't see why we cannot. We've as good a place for it, quite."

"I mean, we cannot do it satisfactorily. It will not be the same thing.
We cannot raise the money. Don't it take a good deal?"

"Well, it takes considerable. But I think, if we all try, we can scare
it up somehow."

Lois shook her head. "The other church is richer than we are," she said.

"That's a fact," said Charity.

Mrs. Seelye hesitated. "I don't know," she said,--"they have one or two
rich men. Mr. Georges--"

"O, and Mr. Flare," cried Madge, "and Buck, and Setterdown; and the
Ropers and the Magnuses."

"Yes," said Mrs. Seelye; "but we have more people, and there's none of
'em to call poor. If we get 'em interested--and those we have spoken to
are very much taken with the plan--very much; I think it would be a
great disappointment now if we were to stop; and the children have got
talking about it. I think we can do it; and it would be a very good
thing for the whole church, to get 'em interested."

"You can always get people interested in play," said Mrs. Armadale.
"What you want, is to get 'em interested in work."

"There'll be a good deal of work about this, before it's over," said
Mrs. Seelye, with a pleased chuckle. "And I think, when they get their
pride up, the money will be coming."

Mrs. Marx made a