A Cathedral Singer | Page 4

courtesy which was the soul of him and the secret of his genius for
inspiring others to do their utmost, the master of the class glanced at
her and glanced at the members of the class, and tried to draw them
together with a mere smile of sympathetic introduction. It was an
attempt to break the ice. For them it did break the ice; all responded
with a smile for her or with other play of the features that meant
gracious recognition. With her the ice remained unbroken; she withheld
all response to their courteous overtures. Either she may not have
trusted herself to respond; or waiting there merely as a model, she
declined to establish any other understanding with them whatsoever. So
that he went further in the kindness of his intention and said:
"Madam, this is my class of eager, warm, generous young natures who
are to have the opportunity of trying to paint you. They are mere
beginners; their art is still unformed. But you may believe that they will
put their best into what they are about to undertake; the loyalty of the
hand, the respect of the eye, the tenderness of their memories,
consecration to their art, their dreams and hopes of future success. Now
if you will be good enough to sit here, I will pose you."
He stepped toward a circular revolving-platform placed at the focus of

the massed easels: it was the model's rack of patience, the mount of
humiliation, the scaffold of exposure.
She had perhaps not understood that this would be required of her, this
indignity, that she must climb upon a block like an old-time slave at an
auction. For one instant her fighting look came back and her eyes,
though they rested on vacancy, blazed on vacancy and an ugly red
rushed over her face which had been whiter than colorless. Then as
though she had become disciplined through years of necessity to do the
unworthy things that must be done, she stepped resolutely though
unsteadily upon the platform. A long procession of men and women
had climbed thither from many a motive on life's upward or downward
road.
He had specially chosen a chair for a three-quarter portrait, stately,
richly carved; about it hung an atmosphere of high-born things.
Now, the body has definite memories as the mind has definite
memories, and scarcely had she seated herself before the recollections
of former years revived in her and she yielded herself to the chair as
though she had risen from it a moment before. He did not have to pose
her; she had posed herself by grace of bygone luxurious ways. A few
changes in the arrangement of the hands he did make. There was
required some separation of the fingers; excitement caused her to hold
them too closely together. And he drew the entire hands into notice; he
specially wished them to be appreciated in the portrait. They were
wonderful hands: they looked eloquent with the histories of generations;
their youthfulness seemed centuries old. Yet all over them, barely to be
seen, were the marks of life's experience, the delicate but dread
sculpture of adversity.
For a while it was as he had foreseen. She was aware only of the
brutality of her position; and her face, by its confused expressions and
quick changes of color, showed what painful thoughts surged.
Afterward a change came gradually. As though she could endure the
ordeal only by forgetting it and could forget it only by looking ahead
into the happiness for which it was endured, slowly there began to
shine out upon her face its ruling passion--the acceptance of life and the

love of the mother glinting as from a cloud-hidden sun across the
world's storm. When this expression had come out, it stayed there. She
had forgotten her surroundings, she had forgotten herself. Poor indeed
must have been the soul that would not have been touched by the
spectacle of her, thrilled by her as by a great vision.
There was silence in the room of young workers. Before them, on the
face of the unknown, was the only look that the whole world
knows--the love and self-sacrifice of the mother; perhaps the only
element of our better humanity that never once in the history of
mankind has been misunderstood and ridiculed or envied and reviled.
Some of them worked with faces brightened by thoughts of devoted
mothers at home; the eyes of a few were shadowed by memories of
mothers alienated or dead.

II
That morning on the ledge of rock at the rear of the cathedral Nature
hinted to passers what they would more abundantly see if fortunate
enough to be with her where she was entirely at home--out in the
country.
The young grass along the