"Can you find elsewhere a nobler field of work than surrounds you here?"
"Certainly not, and some dross of selfishness mingles with the motives that will ultimately bear me beyond these hallowing precincts; yet a day may come, when having fulfilled a sacred duty, I shall travel back, praying you to let me live, and work, and die among you."
"My sister, your patient submission, your tireless application, have endeared you to me; and I should grieve to lose you from our little gray band, where your artistic labors have reflected so much credit on the 'Home'."
"Thank you, Sister Ruth; praise from fellow toilers is praise indeed, and the greatest blessing one human being can bestow upon another, I owe to you; the blessing of being helped to procure work, which enables me to help myself. If I leave the 'Anchorage' for a season, it will be on an errand such as Noah's dove went forth from refuge to perform; and when I return with my olive branch, the deluge of my life will have spent its fury, and I shall rest in peace where the ark is anchored."
"Do you imagine that desertion from our ranks will be so readily condoned? Drum-head court martial obtains here."
"Would you call it desertion, if seizing the flag of duty that floats over us here, I forsook the camp only long enough to scout on a dangerous outpost, to fight single-handed a desperate battle! If I fell, the folds of our banner would shroud me; if I conquered, would you not all greet me, when weary and worn I dragged myself back to the ranks? Some day, when I tap at the ark window, you will open your arms and take me in; for then my earthly mission will have ended, and the smoke of the accepted sacrifice will linger in my garments."
"Meantime, to-day's duties demand attention. I have a note from Cyril Brompton requesting that special courtesy be shown by us to his friend, the new Bishop, who is in the city, and who desires to inspect the 'Anchorage'. Cyril declines escorting the party, because he finds it painful to meet you now, and he wishes particularly that you should show your own department. I shall not be able to climb to the third story, while my ankles are so swollen, so I must deputize you to do the honors on your floor. Hold yourself in readiness, if I should send for you, and do not forget to give the Bishop a package of the new prospectus of the art school. That basket of orchids must be delivered before five o'clock. Sister Joanna said you detained her to make a sketch of it."
"I had almost finished when you summoned me. Send her up for the basket in half an hour."
The long studio was deserted, and very quiet on that sultry Saturday afternoon in midsummer, and the drowsy air was laden with fragrance from the pots of white carnations, massed on the iron balcony, upon which the tall, plate glass windows opened to the north. Down the centre of the apartment ran a table covered with oil cloth, and on the walls hung pictures in oil, water-color, crayon, while upon brackets and pedestals were mounted plaster casts, terra cotta heads, a few bronzes, and some hammered brass plaques. In the corners of the room, four marvels of taxidermy contributed brilliant colors mixed on the feathered palettes of a pea-fowl, a scarlet flamingo, a gold and a silver pheasant, all perched on miniature mounds, built of curious specimens of rock, of shells, coral and sphagnum.
The slow, languid swish, swish of the waters stirred by a passing steamer, broke on the cliff beyond the wall; and along the sky line where lake and atmosphere melted insensibly into blue distance, great cumulus copper-colored clouds hooded with salmon-tinted folds, tipped here and there with molten silver, shadowed with pearly hollows, hung entranced by their own image, over the inland sea that gleamed like a mirror.