“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 allowed to climb up to their perch and see their work.  When he next came, Esther told him of Wharton’s lecture, and of Catherine’s sudden rebellion.  Delighted with this new flight of his prairie bird, Strong declared that as they were all bent on taking likenesses of Catherine, he would like to try his own hand at it, and show them how an American Saint ought to look when seen by the light of science.  He then set to work with Esther’s pencils, and drew a portrait of Catherine under the figure of a large Colorado beetle, with wings extended.  When it was done he pinned it against the wall.

“Now, Esther!” said he.  “Take my advice.  No one wants European saints over here; they are only clerical bric-a-brac, and what little meaning they ever had is not worth now a tolerable Japanese teapot; but here is a national saint that every one knows; not an American citizen can come into your church from Salt Lake City to Nantucket, who will not say that this is the church for his money; he will believe in your saints, for he knows them.  Paint her so!”