nd in its fashion a great work? But our people do not make such
things; we are artisans, not artists."

"The artisan should be an artist," said Miriam, setting her mouth.

"Perhaps, but as a rule he isn't. Do you think that you could mould
lamps?"

"There is nothing I should like better, that is if I am not forced to
copy one pattern," she added as an afterthought.

"Then," said the bishop, "I think, daughter, that I can show you how to
earn a living, where none are likely to seek for you."

Not a hundred paces away from the carpenter's shop where the master
craftsman, Septimus, worked, was another manufactory, in which vases,
basins, lamps, and all such articles were designed, moulded and baked.
The customers who frequented the place, wholesale merchants for the most
part, noted from and after the day of this interview a new workwoman,
who, so far as her rough blouse permitted them to judge, seemed to be
young and pretty, seated in a corner apart, beneath a window by the
light of which she laboured. Later on they observed also, those of them
who had any taste, that among the lamps produced by the factory appeared
some of singular and charming design, so good, indeed, that although the
makers reaped little extra benefit, the middlemen found no difficulty
in disposing of these pieces at a high price. All day long Miriam sat
fashioning them, while old Nehushta, who had learnt something of the
task years ago by Jordan, prepared and tempered the clay and carried the
finished work to the furnace.

Now, though none would have guessed it, in this workshop all the
labourers were Christians, and the product of their toil was cast into
a common treasury on the proceeds of which they lived, taking, each of
them, such share as their elders might decree, and giving the surplus to
brethren who had need, or to the sick. Connected with these shops were
lodging houses, mean enough to look at, but clean within. At the top
of one of them, up three flights of narrow stairs, Miriam and Nehushta
dwelt in a large attic that was very hot when the sun shone on the
roof, and very cold in the bitter winds and rains of winter. In other
respects, however, the room was not unpleasant, since being so high
there were few smells and little noise; also the air that blew in at the
windows was fresh and odorous of the open lands beyond the city.

So there they dwelt in peace, for none came to search for the costly and
beautiful Pearl-Maiden in