"Why not?" said she, with a smile. "Of course, I might have called in old Cato to open the box; but he would have done it so slowly and awkwardly that I should have suffered tortures in watching him; it was easier to do it myself. To be sure," she went on, taking up the hammer and chisel, "these are not quite so fit for a lady's hands as the lighter and slenderer implements that I use in modelling; but I like them well, nevertheless. It would go hard with me, here in this quiet country town, away from all aids and appliances of art, if I were not on very good terms with purely mechanical labor. I made the mould, from which that cast was taken, myself;"--she pointed to the Mercury. Bergan looked as if he scarcely understood. "I suppose you are aware," pursued Astra, "that the word 'sculptor' is a misnomer, nowadays. The real sculpture--that is the marble-cutting--except a few finishing touches, is done by artisans skilled in that work. The plaster casts are made by regular casters, from moulds taken from clay models. These last, only, are the work of the artist throughout,--shaped by his fingers, and informed by his thought. See! here is the raw material of my work!" She pointed to a large triangular box, in one corner of her closet, filled with fine, moist clay. She even leaned over it, and inhaled its earthy odor, with a kind of affection. Bergan also looked into it so long, so silently, and with so meditative an aspect, that Miss Lyte finally interrupted the flow of his thoughts with a question as to their character. "I was thinking," replied he, "of the many differing shapes,--lovely, grand, sorrowful, joyous, winning, repulsive,--that might be lurking within your tub. And I was wondering which of them you would next call forth." "Think, rather," said Astra, smiling, "of all the shapes that I have sent into it." "You do not mean to say that you use the same clay over again," exclaimed Bergan, in surprise. "Certainly, I do. It loses none of its adaptability by use. In that tub is the original clay of everything that you see in my studio,--all the busts, statues, and reliefs, that I have ever done, or tried to do,--all my successes, and all my failures;--every one of them has gone into that tub, even as it came out of it." "Creation and death!" exclaimed Bergan. "'Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.' It is a world in miniature!" "And does it not also show that there is nothing new under the sun?" said Astra. "It is always the old material in new shapes, the old thought in new phraseology, the old human nature in new conditions, even the old particles of disintegrated human bodies in new organisms."