The great church was silent with the echoing silence which is audible. Except for a call from workmen below to those at work above, or for the murmur of the painters as they chatted in intervals of rest, or for occasional hammering, which echoed in hollow reverberations, no sound disturbed repose. Here one felt the meaning of retreat and self-absorption, the dignity of silence which respected itself; the presence which was not to be touched or seen. To a simple-minded child like Catherine Brooke, the first effect was as impressive as though she were in the church of St. Mark's. She was overwhelmed by the space and silence, the color and form; and as she came close to Wharton's four great figures of the evangelists and saw how coarsely they were painted, and looked sheer down from them upon the distant church-floor, she thought herself in an older world, and would hardly have felt surprised at finding herself turned into an Italian peasant-girl, and at seeing Michael Angelo and Raphael, instead of Wharton and Esther, walk in at the side door, and proceed to paint her in celestial grandeur and beauty, as the new Madonna of the prairie, over the high altar. This humility lasted several minutes. Then after glancing steadfastly at Wharton's figure of John of Patmos which stood next to that which Esther was to paint, Catherine suddenly broke out: "Shade of Columbus! You are not going to make me look like that?" "I suppose I must," replied Esther, mischievously. "Lean and dingy, in a faded brown blanket?" asked Catherine in evident anguish. "So Mr. Wharton says," answered Esther, unrelentingly. "Not if I'm there," rejoined Catherine, this time with an air of calm decision. "I'm no such ornery saint as that." Henceforth she applied all her energies and feminine charms to the task of preventing this disaster, and her first effort was to make a conquest of Wharton. Esther stood in fear of the painter, who was apt to be too earnest to measure his words with great care. He praised little and found fault much. He broke out in rage with all work that seemed to him weak or sentimental. He required Esther to make her design on the spot that he might see moment by moment what it was coming to, and half a dozen times he condemned it and obliged her to begin anew. Almost every day occurred some scene of discouragement which made Esther almost regret that she had undertaken a task so hard. Catherine, being encouraged by the idea that Esther was partly struggling for her sake, often undertook to join in the battle and sometimes got roughly handled for her boldness. "Why can't you let her go her own way, Mr. Wharton, and see what she means to do?" asked Catherine one morning, after a week of unprofitable labor. "Because she does not come here to go her own way, Miss Brooke, but to go the right way." "But don't you see that she is a woman, and you are trying to make a man of her?" "An artist must be man, woman and demi-god," replied Wharton sternly.