herine was
plunged into a new world of imagination which so absorbed her thoughts
that for the time Wharton himself seemed common-place. High on her
scaffolding which looked sheer down into the empty, echoing church, with
huge saints and evangelists staring at her from every side, and martyrs
admiring each other's beatitude, Catherine, who was already half
inclined to think life unreal, fell into a dream within a dream, and
wondered which was untrue.

Esther's anxiety about Catherine was for the time put at rest by the
professor's little maneuver, but she had some rather more serious cause
for disquiet about herself, in regard to which she did not care to
consult her cousin or any one else. Wharton and Strong were not the only
men who undertook to enliven her path of professional labor. Every day
at noon, the Reverend Stephen Hazard visited his church to see how
Wharton was coming forward, and this clerical duty was not neglected
after Esther joined the work-people. Much as Mr. Hazard had to do, and
few men in New York were busier, he never forgot to look in for a moment
on the artists, and Esther could not help noticing that this moment
tended to lengthen. He had a way of joining Wharton and Catherine on
their tour of inspection, and then bringing Catherine back to Esther's
work-place, and sitting down for an instant to rest and look at the St.
Cecilia. Time passed rapidly, and once or twice it had come over
Esther's mind that, for a very busy man, Mr. Hazard seemed to waste a
great deal of time. It grew to be a regular habit that between noon and
one o'clock, Esther and Catherine entertained the clergyman of the
parish.

The strain of standing in a pulpit is great. No human being ever yet
constructed was strong enough to offer himself long as a light to
humanity without showing the effect on his constitution. Buddhist saints
stand for years silent, on one leg, or with arms raised above their
heads, but the limbs shrivel, and the mind shrivels with the limbs.
Christian saints have found it necessary from time to time to drop their
arms and to walk on their legs, but they do it with a sort of apology or
defiance, and sometimes do it, if they can, by stealth. One is a saint
or one is not; every man can choose the career that suits him; but to be
saint and sinner at the same time requires singular ingenuity. For this
reason, wise clergymen, whose tastes, though in themselves innocent, may
give scandal to others, enjoy t