Lois hesitated.
"I like work anyhow better than play," she said. "But then, if you look at it in a certain way, it becomes much better than play. Don't you know, Madge, I take it all, everything, as given me by the Lord to do;—to do for him;—and I do it so; and that makes every bit of it all pleasant."
"But you can't!" said Madge pettishly. She was not a pettish person, only just now something in her sister's words had the effect of irritation.
"Can't what?"
"Do everything for the Lord. Making butter, for instance; or cherry sweetmeats. Ridiculous! And nonsense."
"I don't mean it for nonsense. It is the way I do my garden work and my sewing."
"What do you mean, Lois? The garden work is for our eating, and the sewing is for your own back, or grandma's. I understand religion, but I don't understand cant."
"Madge, it's not cant; it's the plain truth."
"Only that it is impossible."
"No. You do not understand religion, or you would know how it is. All these things are things given us to do; we must make the clothes and preserve the cherries, and I must weed strawberries, and then pick strawberries, and all the rest. God has given me these things to do, and I do them for him."