nted:

"Siccome eterna vita e veder dio,
Ne piu si brama, ne bramar piu lice;"

and at such moments he began to think that he was himself Petrarch, and
that to repeat to his Laura the next two verses of the sonnet had become
the destiny of his life.

So the weeks ran on until, after a month of hard work, the last days of
January saw the two figures nearly completed. When in due time the
meaning of St. Luke became evident, Esther and Catherine waited in fear
to see how Wharton would take the liberty on which they had so rashly
ventured. As the likeness came out more strongly, he stopped one morning
before it, when Esther, after finishing her own task, was working on Mr.
Hazard's design.

"By our lady of love!" said Wharton, with a start and a laugh; "now I
see what mischief you three have been at!"

"The church would not have been complete without it," said Esther
timidly.

For several minutes Wharton looked in silence at the St. Cecilia and at
the figure which now seemed its companion; then he said, turning away:
"I shall not be the first unworthy saint the church has canonized."

Esther drew a long breath of relief; Catherine started up, radiant with
delight; and thus it happens that on the walls of St. John's, high above
the world of vanities beneath them, Wharton stands, and will stand for
ages, gazing at Catherine Brooke.

Now that the two saints were nearly finished, Esther became a little
depressed. This church life, like a bit of religious Bohemianism and
acted poetry, had amused her so greatly that she found her own small
studio dull. She could no longer work there without missing the space,
the echoes, the company, and above all, the sense of purpose, which she
felt on her scaffolding. She complained to Wharton of her feminine want
of motive in life.

"I wish I earned my living," she said. "You don't know what it is to
work without an object."

"Much of the best work in the world," said he, "has been done with no
motive of gain."

"Men can do so many things that women can't," said she. "Men like to
work alone. Women cannot work without company. Do you like solitude?"

"I would like to own a private desert," he answered, "and live alone in
the middle of it with lions and tigers to eat intruders."

"You need not go so far," said she. "Take my studio!"

"With you and Miss Brooke in the neighborhood? Never!"

"We will let you alone. In a week you will put your head out of the door
and sa