he said, "look at her now!" Then, catching a crayon, he
continued: "Wait! Let me try it myself!" and began rapidly to draw the
girl's features. Quite upset by this unexpected recoil of her attack,
Catherine would have liked to escape, but the painter, when the fit was
on him, became very imperious, and she dared not oppose his will. When
at length he finished his sketch, he had the civility to beg her pardon.

"This is a man's work," said Esther, studying his drawing. "No woman
would ever have done it. I don't like it. I prefer her as she is and as
I made her."

Wharton himself seemed to be not perfectly satisfied with his own
success, for he made no answer to Esther's criticism, and after one
glance at his sketch, relapsed into moody silence. Perhaps he felt that
what he had drawn was not a St. Cecilia at all, and still less a
Catherine Brooke. He had narrowed the face, deepened its lines, made the
eyes much stronger and darker, and added at least ten years to
Catherine's age, in order to give an expression of passion subsided and
heaven attained.

"You have reached Nirvana," said Esther to Catherine, still studying the
sketch.

"What is Nirvana?" asked Catherine.

"Ask Mr. Wharton. He has put you there."

"Nirvana is what I mean by Paradise," replied Wharton slowly. "It is
eternal life, which, my poet says, consists in seeing God."

"I would not like to look like that," said Catherine in an awe-struck
tone. "Do you think this picture will ever be like me?"

"The gods forbid!" said the painter uneasily.

Catherine, who could not take her eyes from this revelation of the
possible mysteries in her own existence, mysteries which for the first
time seemed to have come so near as to over-shadow her face, now
suddenly turned to Wharton and said with irresistible simplicity:

"Mr. Wharton, will you let me have it? I have no money. Will you give it
to me?"

"You could not buy it. I will give it to you on one condition," replied
Wharton.

"Don't make it a hard one."

"You shall forget that I said you had no soul."

"Oh!" said Catherine greatly relieved; "if I have one, you were the
first to see it."

She carried the sketch away with her, nor has any one caught sight of it
since she rolled it up. She refused to show it or talk of it, until even
Strong was forced to drop the subject, and leave her to dream in peace
of the romance that could give such a light to her eyes.

Strong was one of the few persons al