pictures to draw. Well, come with me and all in good time we will see about the pictures.'
Three steps up, an unexpected twist past other desks where clerks and editors labored, and she was led into an old square room overlooking the King's Chapel Burying Ground. The disordered stones were tumbled about like jackstraws and the ripe grasses grew high among them.
'Hester Prynne is buried out there,' said Mr. Fox, seeming to remember that he had promised to show her the graves in his back yard. Perhaps he sensed her excitement and confusion, for he turned from her and stood gazing out the window. 'Or at least her prototype. There are that many people at least,' he said with satisfaction, 'who will never more submit a manuscript.'
Lanice got a vivid and unforgettable impression of the man as he stood half turned away from her, his shapely head silhouetted against the eternal melancholy of the graveyard.
'First of all'—he turned back to her—'remove whatever of your costume it is customary to remove under these circumstances, and be seated. Then we will talk things over. You didn't bring any paintings with you? That's good. Artists staggering in with their portfolios always are a pathetic and therefore irritating sight. Poets with rolls of poems are bad enough, but they are on the whole less docile and not so touching. You do draw, don't you?'
'I've been with Mrs. Dummer for the last eight months and I have always had the best instruction
