But she saw that it was merely the flattered portrait of an earthly beauty; the wife, at best, of the artist; or, it might be, a peasant girl of the Campagna, or some Roman princess, to whom he desired to pay his court.

For love, or some even less justifiable motive, the old painter had apotheosized these women; he thus gained for them, as far as his skill would go, not only the meed of immortality, but the privilege of presiding over Christian altars, and of being worshipped with far holier fervors than while they dwelt on earth.

Hilda's fine sense of the fit and decorous could not be betrayed into kneeling at such a shrine.
She never found just the virgin mother whom she needed.

Here it was an earthly mother, worshipping the earthly baby in her lap, as any and every mother does, from Eve's time downward.

In another picture, there was a dim sense, shown in the mother's face, of some divine quality in the child.