"The Emperor Nero! Well, the poor madman
has gone to his own place, so let us say no more of him. But I heard of
that bust; indeed I saw it; it was a likeness of Marcus Fortunatus, was
it not, and in its fashion a great work? But our people do not make such
things; we are artisans, not artists."
"The artisan should be an artist," said Miriam, setting her mouth.
"Perhaps, but as a rule he isn't. Do you think that you could mould
lamps?"
"There is nothing I should like better, that is if I am not forced to
copy one pattern," she added as an afterthought.
"Then," said the bishop, "I think, daughter, that I can show you how to
earn a living, where none are likely to seek for you."
Not a hundred paces away from the carpenter's shop where the master
craftsman, Septimus, worked, was another manufactory, in which vases,
basins, lamps, and all such articles were designed, moulded and baked.
The customers who frequented the place, wholesale merchants for the most
part, noted from and after the day of this interview a new workwoman,
who, so far as her rough blouse permitted them to judge, seemed to be
young and pretty, seated in a corner apart, beneath a window by the
light of which she laboured. Later on they observed also, those of them
who had any taste, that among the lamps produced by the factory appeared
some of singular and charming design, so good, indeed, that although the
makers reaped little extra benefit, the middlemen found no difficulty
in disposing of these pieces at a high price.
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