"I'm afraid," said Eva, "our _crown_ may prove much of the same material!" "I sometimes wonder," said Ida, "whether all the money spent for flowers at Easter could not better be spent in some mode of relieving the poor." "Well," said Eva, "I am sorry to bring up such a parallel, but isn't that just the same kind of remark that Judas made about the alabaster vase of ointment?" "Yes," said I; "what could be more apparently useless than a mere perfume, losing itself in the air, and vanishing entirely? And yet the Saviour justified that lavish expenditure when it was the expression of a heart-feeling." "But," said Ida, "don't you think it very difficult to mark the line where these services and offerings to religious worship become excessive?" "Of course it is," said I; "but no more difficult on this subject than any other." "That's the great trouble in this life," said Eva. "The line between right and wrong seems always so indefinite, like the line between any two colors of the prism--it is hard to say just where one ends and another begins." "It is the office of common sense," I said, "to get the exact right in all such matters--there is a sort of _instinct_ in it." "Well, all I have to say about it is," said Eva, "since we do spend lavishly and without stint in our houses and in our dress for adornment, we ought to do at least as much for our religion. I like to see the adornment of a church generous, overflowing, as if we gave our very best. As to these lilies, I ordered them of an honest gardener, and it goes to help support a family that would be poor if it were not for these flowers. It is better to support one or two families honestly, by buying their flowers for churches than it is to give the money away. So I look on it." "Oh, well," said Alice, "there is no end to anything. Everything you do tends to something else; and everything leads to something; and there is never any knowing about anything; and so I think it is best just to have as good a time as you can, and do everything that is agreeable, and make everything just as pretty as it can be. And I think it is fun to trim up the church for Easter. There now! And it don't do any harm. And I just like to go to the sunrise service, if it does make one sleepy all day. What do you say, Mr. Fellows? Do you think you could go through with the whole of it?" "Miss Alice, if you only go you will find me inspired with the spirit of a primitive Christian in this respect," said Jim. "I shall follow wherever you lead the way, if it's ever so late at night, or ever so early in the morning." "And Mr. Henderson," said she, "may we depend on you, too?" "By all means," said I, as I sat industriously gathering up the lilies into bunches and tying them. "Mr. Henderson is in a hopeful way," said Eva. "I think we may have him in the true church some of these times."