be. The moment art, especially sculpture, passes out of the
domain of the folk tale it becomes pagan.

One of Rodney's principal patrons was a certain Father McCabe, who had
begun life by making an ancient abbey ridiculous by adding a modern
steeple. He had ruined two parishes by putting up churches so large
that his parishioners could not afford to keep them in repair. All this
was many years ago, and the current story was that a great deal of
difficulty had been experienced in settling Father McCabe's debts, and
that the Bishop had threatened to suspend him if he built any more.
However this may be, nothing was heard of Father McCabe for fifteen
years. He retired entirely into private life, but at his Bishop's death
he was heard of in the newspapers as the propounder of a scheme for the
revival of Irish Romanesque. He had been to America, and had collected
a large sum of money, and had got permission from his Bishop to set an
example of what Ireland could do "in the line" of Cormac's Chapel.

Rodney had designed an altar for him, and he had also given Rodney a
commission for a statue of the Virgin. There were no models in Dublin.
There was no nakedness worth a sculptor's while. One of the two fat
unfortunate women that the artists of Dublin had been living upon for
the last seven years was in child, the other had gone to England, and
the memory of them filled Rodney with loathing and contempt and an
extraordinary eagerness for Italy. He had been on the point of telling
Father McCabe that he could not undertake to do the Virgin and Child
because there were no models. He had just stopped in time. He had
suddenly remembered that the priest did not know that sculptors use
models; that he did not know, at all events, that a nude model would be
required to model a Virgin from, and he had replied ambiguously, making
no promise to do this group before he left Ireland. "If I can get a
model here I will do it," he had said to himself. "If not, the
ecclesiastic will have to wait until I get to Italy."

Rodney no more believed in finding a good model in Dublin than he
believed in Christianity. But the unexpected had happened. He had
discovered in Dublin the most delicious model that had ever enchanted a
sculptor's eyes, and this extraordinary good fortune had happened in
the simplest way. He had gone to a solicitor's office to sign an
agreement for one of Father McCabe's altars, and as he came in he saw a
girl rise from her ty