“I like him already,” said Catherine.  “A professor with spectacles is worth more than a Sioux warrior.  I will go with him.”

“Don’t be in a hurry,” replied Strong; “it will come to about the same thing in the end.  My colleague will only want your head to dry and stuff for his collection.”

“If I were a girl again,” said Mrs. Murray, who was listening to their conversation, “I would much rather a man should ask for my head than my heart.”

“That is what is the matter with all of you,” said Strong.  “There are Wharton and Esther at it again, quarreling about Catherine’s head.  Every body disputes about her head, and I am the only one who goes for her heart.”

“Mr. Wharton is so stern,” pleaded Esther in defense against the charge of quarreling.  “A hundred times he has told me that I can’t draw; he should have made me learn when he undertook to teach me.”

“You might learn more easily now, if you would be patient about it,” said Wharton.  “You have too much quickness and not enough knowledge.”

“I think Mr. Hazard turns his compliments better than you,” said Esther.  “After one of your speeches I have to catch my breath and think what it means.”

“I mean that you ought to 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.