As Wharton had said of Esther, she was but a second-rate amateur.  Whether there was a living artist whom Wharton would have classed higher than a first-rate amateur is doubtful.  On his scale to be second-rate was a fair showing.  Esther had studied under good masters both abroad and at home.  She had not the patience to be thorough, but who had?  She asked this question of Mr. Wharton when he attacked her for bad drawing, and Wharton’s answer left on her mind the impression that he was himself the only thorough artist in the world; yet others with whom she talked hinted much the same thing of themselves.  Esther at all events painted many canvases and panels, good or bad, some of which had been exhibited and had even been sold, more perhaps owing to some trick of the imagination which she had put into them than to their technical merit.  Yet into one work she had put her whole soul, and with success.  This was a portrait of her father, which that severe critic liked well enough to hang on the wall of his library, and which was admitted to have merits even by Wharton, though he said that its unusual and rather masculine firmness of handling was due to the subject and could never be repeated.

Catherine was charmed to sit for her portrait.  It was touching to see the superstitious reverence with which this prairie child kneeled before whatever she supposed to be learned or artistic.  She took it for granted that Esther’s painting was wonderful; her only difficulty was to understand how a man so trivial as George Strong, could be a serious professor, in a real university.  She thought that Strong’s taste for bric-a-brac was another of his jokes.  He tried to educate her, and had almost succeeded when, in producing his last and most perfect bit of Japanese lacquer, he said:  “This piece, Catherine, is too pure for man.  We pray to it.”  Catherine sat as serious as eternity, but she believed in her heart that he was making fun of her.

In this atmosphere, to sit for her portrait was happiness, because it made her a part of her society.  Esther was surprised to find what a difficult model she was, with liquid reflections of eyes, hair and skin that would have puzzled Correggio.  Of course she was to be painted as the Sage Hen.  George sent for sage brush, and got a stuffed sage hen, and photographs of sage-plains, to give Esther the local color for her picture.

Chapter III

Once a week, if she could, Esther passed an hour or two with the children at the hospital.  This building had accommodations for some twenty-five or thirty small patients, and as it was a private affair, the ladies managed it to please themselves.  The children were given all the sunlight that could be got into their rooms and all the toys and playthings they could profitably destroy.  As the doctors said that, with most of them, amusement was all they would ever get out of life, an attempt was made to amuse them.  One large room was fitted up for the purpose, and