To make his incessant attention still more necessary, it happened that Hazard’s knowledge and his library were often drawn upon by Wharton and his workmen.  Not only was he learned in all matters which pertained to church arrangement and decoration, but his collection of books on the subject was the best in New York, and his library touched the church wall.  Wharton had a quantity of his books in constant use, and was incessantly sending to consult about points of doubt.  Hazard was bent upon having every thing correct, and complained sadly when he found that his wishes were not regarded.  He lectured Wharton on the subject of early Christian art until he saw that Wharton would no longer listen, and then he went off to Miss Dudley, and lectured her.

Esther was not a good subject for instruction of this sort.  She cared little for what the early Christians believed, either in religion or art, and she remembered nothing at all of his deep instruction on the inferences to be drawn from the contents of crypts and catacombs.  The more earnest he became, the less could she make out his meaning.  She could not reconcile herself to draw the attenuated figures and haggard forms of the early martyrs merely because they suited the style of church decoration; and she could see no striking harmony of relation between these ill-looking beings and the Fifth Avenue audience to whom they were supposed to have some moral or sentimental meaning.  After one or two hesitating attempts to argue this point, she saw that it was useless, and made up her mind that as a matter of ordinary good manners, the least she could do was to treat Mr. Hazard civilly in his own church, and listen with respect to his lectures on Christian art.  She even did her best to obey his wishes in all respects in which she understood them, but here an unexpected and confusing play of cross-purposes came in to mislead her.  Wharton suddenly found that Hazard let Miss Dudley have her own way to an extent permitted to no one else.  Esther was not conscious that the expression of a feeling or a wish on her part carried any special weight, but there could be no doubt that if Miss Dudley seemed to want any thing very much, Mr. Hazard showed no sense of shame in suddenly forgetting his fixed theories and encouraging her to do what she pleased.  This point was settled when she had been some ten days at work trying to satisfy Wharton’s demands, which were also Mr. Hazard’s, in regard to the character and expression of St. Cecilia.  Catherine was so earnest not to be made repulsive, and Esther’s own tastes lay so strongly in the same direction, that when it came to the point, she could not force herself to draw such a figure as was required; she held out with a sort of feminine sweetness such as cried aloud for discipline, and there was no doubt that Wharton was quite ready to inflict it.  In spite of Catherine, and Esther too, he would have carried his point, had Esther not appealed to Mr. Hazard; but this strenuous