be a professional," replied Wharton.

"But if I were able to be a professional, do you think I would be an
amateur?" asked Esther. "No! I would decorate a church."

"If that is all your ambition, do it now!" said Wharton. "Come and help
me to finish St. John's. I have half a dozen workmen there who are
certainly not so good as you."

"What will you give me to do?" asked she.

"I will engage you to paint, under my direction, a large female figure
on the transept wall. There are four vacant spaces for which I have made
only rough drawings, and you can try your hand on whichever you prefer.
You shall be paid like the other artists, and you will find some other
women employed there, to keep you company."

"Let me choose the subject," said Mr. Hazard. "I think I have a voice in
the matter."

"That depends on your choice," replied Wharton.

"It must be St. Cecilia, of course," said Hazard; "and Miss Brooke must
sit again as model."

"Could you not sit yourself as St. George on the dragon?" asked Strong.
"I have just received a tertiary dragon from the plains, which I should
like to see properly used in the interests of the church."

"Catherine is a better model," answered Esther.

"You've not yet seen my dragon. Let me bring him round to you. With
Hazard on his back, he would fly away with you all into the stars."

"There are dragons enough at St. John's," answered Hazard. "I will ride
on none of them."

"You've no sense of the highest art," said Strong. "Science alone is
truth. You are throwing away your last chance to reconcile science and
religion."

So, after much discussion, it was at last decided that Esther Dudley
should begin work at St. John's as a professional decorator under Mr.
Wharton's eye, and that her first task should be to paint a standing
figure of St. Cecilia, some eight or ten feet high, on the wall of the
north transept.

_Chapter IV_

St. John's church was a pleasant spot for such work. The north transept,
high up towards the vault of the roof, was still occupied by a wide
scaffold which shut in the painters and shut out the curious, and ran
the whole length of its three sides, being open towards the body of the
church. When Esther came to inspect her field of labor, she found
herself obliged to choose between a space where her painting would be
conspicuous from below, and one where, except in certain unusual lights,
it could hardly be seen at all. Partly out of delicacy, tha