So they went home and played church in the front yard, until Ethelwyn and Nan came home just before the sermon.
Those young ladies had fully intended solemnly to lecture the two at home, but it was very pleasant under the trees, with the birds, and Bobby and Beth singing lustily, so they joined in, and Ethelwyn then preached. "I choose to," she said, "because I went to an awfully dry lecture on art or clothes or something, with mother. I slept some, 'cause it was almost as hard to understand as a sermon, but when I was awake I heard a good deal that will do you good.
"Clothes," she went on after this introduction, "will ruin your health if you don't look out, and study statoos and things for some kind of line, clothes-line, I guess. So when you see a lot of white statoos—which aren't as interesting as the circus but more good for learning, which is always the way in this life—learnified things are likely to be dry—you'll learn something. But I went to sleep before I found out what or why statoos is the thing to study; but they are so cold-looking, from being undressed, that I think it would be a kind act to make pajamas for them, and trousers for our dolls so they will live longer—"
"I will not," said Beth firmly, from the congregation. "It wouldn't be fun to have all boy dolls, and you know it, sister, and besides wasn't Billy Boy the first doll we broke after Christmas? and he's up-stairs now waiting for his funeral."
"O, let's have it now," said Nan, who didn't like sermons unless she preached them.
"No, here's mother and we'll have to have dinner now, so we will have the funeral to-morrow," said Ethelwyn.
Begins with a funeral and ends with a feast.
Sorrow is drowned for this time at least.