“Dr. Grant has arranged a special session meeting early in the morning before the service.”

“Oh,” said Grandmother suspiciously. “Why was that?”

“Well, he said they often did,” evaded Constance’s mother. “I think it’s most appropriate at that hour just before the service.”

The old lady studied her daughter a moment speculatively; then, apparently satisfied, she said, “Well then, I shall give her the pearls in the morning. I’d like her to wear them to the service. I’d like to see them on her the first time in the church. Easter Day. Her first communion. It will be lovely, Mary. It will be just as I have hoped and planned. Her grandfather would have liked it so.”

“Yes!” said Constance’s mother crisply. “So appropriate! And so dear of you, Mother, to give her the pearls. I’m sure she’ll be deeply grateful.”

Constance smothered a mocking smile and came ruefully down the stairs, wondering what some of her professors at college and various fellow students would think if they would know that she was succumbing to tradition and family pressure just for a string of pearls. Well, the pearls were worth it! Matched pearls and flawless. The only really worthwhile heirloom in the family. Grandfather’s taste in adornment had been severe simplicity and pearls!

The sun shone forth gorgeously on Easter morning. Constance groaned softly as she saw it, looked out from her window and noted the far stretch of the golf links in the distance. Such a day as this was meant to play golf! And to think all the morning had to be wasted!

Yet of course she was to wear the string of pearls!

She went about her dressing with more than the usual care. Was she not to be the focus of all eyes today? Even the eyes in a country church, which had been her great-grandfather’s church in the past, were worth dressing for.

She picked her garments all of white—heavy white silk with a long, fitted coat, white furred to match, white shoes, even white stockings, though the suntan would have been more stylish, but she must not have the look of a sportsman this morning. Grandmother was even capable of coming right up to the front and taking those pearls off her neck during the service if she suspected all was not utmost innocence.

She dressed her golden hair demurely in smooth braids coiled low over her ears with a little tip-tilted hat of white showing a few soft waves on her forehead. With her gold hair, the white hat, and sweet untinted cheeks and lips au naturel for the occasion, she looked like some young saint set apart from all the world.

Her grandmother felt it when she came down the stairs and met her with a sacred smile and a look of satisfaction in the keen, eager old eyes. She clasped the pearls around Constance’s neck and kissed her tenderly.

“Dear child!” she whispered. “How your grandfather used to talk about this day and pray about it!” And then, half-frightened at her words, she retreated back into her silent reticence and hurried out the door to where the car waited to take them to church.

And Constance, following, felt a sudden smart of tears in her eyes in spite of her cynicism. She remembered the words of one most modern professor in talking once about sacraments—how he had advised them not to throw away old sacraments, even if they meant nothing anymore, but to keep them for the sweet sentiment they had had in former years. Constance thought she understood suddenly what he had meant. She caught a brief vision of what all this meant to her grandmother and was really glad she had done it. Even without the pearls, she was glad she had done it just to please little, sweet, hard, bright, old Grandmother.

So with virtue shining from her lovely ultramarine eyes, she entered the lily-decked aisles and took her place in the house of the Lord.

The windows in the old, old church were lovely Tiffany windows. They cast opalescent lights across the sanctuary and touched lightly like a halo the gold of Constance’s hair. They lighted up her unpainted face till she attained an almost holy look in her white garments, her gold hair, her blue, blue eyes, and the pearls around her neck with twinkles of the beauties of all the world in their polished depths.

The music was angelic, and the words the monotonous old minister read and said were sonorous and musical. They meant nothing much to Constance.