“Yes.”
The visitor examined them carefully. “Very interesting. Any more of this?”
“Some notes in pencil.”
“Let me see them.”
The Bonnie Lassie drew out and submitted a sheaf of papers.
“You have done very badly with this,” was the verdict, after concentrated study. “Or else—you have worked hard and honestly upon it?”
“Harder than on anything I've done.”
“There are signs of that, too. What is it you are aiming at? What is the subject? Inside, I mean?” She tapped her forehead and regarded with her luminous stare the eager girl-face before her.
“Why, I hardly know. At first it was one thing, then it changed. I had thought of doing him as 'The Pioneer.' 'Something lost beyond the ranges,' you know.” The woman nodded. “Then later, I wanted to do 'The Last American,' and I modeled him for that.”
“Good!” The older woman's endorsement was emphatic. “How Lincoln-like the formation of the face is, here.” She touched one of the unfinished bits. “That's the American of it. Or is it? Albrecht Dürer did the same thing in his ideal Knight four centuries ago. You know it? It's like a portrait of Lincoln. Did you consciously mould that line in?”