"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. _Chapter IV_ St. John's church was a pleasant spot for such work. The north transept, high up towards the vault of the roof, was still occupied by a wide scaffold which shut in the painters and shut out the curious, and ran the whole length of its three sides, being open towards the body of the church. When Esther came to inspect her field of labor, she found herself obliged to choose between a space where her painting would be conspicuous from below, and one where, except in certain unusual lights, it could hardly be seen at all. Partly out of delicacy, that she might not seem to crowd Wharton's own work into the darkness; partly out of pure diffidence, Esther chose the least conspicuous space, and there a sort of studio was railed off for her, breast high, within which she was mistress. Wharton, when painting, was at this time engaged at some distance, but on the same scaffolding, near the nave.