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 the result was so satisfactory that Esthe