Every profession has its unpresentable aspects, which ought not to be seen by out-siders.

Think of a sculptor's studio and of the sculptor himself when he is modelling a large figure or group in the clay.

He might be a bricklayer or a road-sweeper if you judge by his appearance.

This is the tomb I was telling you about." We halted before the plain coffer of stone, weathered and wasted by age, but yet kept in decent repair by some pious hands, and read the inscription, setting forth with modest pride, that here reposed Anna, sixth daughter of Richard Cromwell, "The Protector." It was a simple monument and commonplace enough, with the crude severity of the ascetic age to which it belonged.

But still, it carried the mind back to those stirring times when the leafy shades of Gray's Inn Lane must have resounded with the clank of weapons and the tramp of armed men; when this bald recreation-ground was a rustic churchyard, standing amidst green fields and hedgerows, and countrymen leading their pack-horses into London through the Lane would stop to look in over the wooden gate.
Miss Bellingham looked at me critically as I stood thus reflecting, and presently remarked, "I think you and I have a good many mental habits in common." I looked up inquiringly, and she continued: "I notice that an old tombstone seems to set you meditating.