"Do you expect to get such drawings in this country?" asked Beaton,
after a glance at the book. "Such character--such drama? You won't."

"Well, I'm not so sure," said Fulkerson, "come to get our amateurs warmed
up to the work. But what I want is to get the physical effect, so to
speak-get that sized picture into our page, and set the fashion of it.
I shouldn't care if the illustration was sometimes confined to an initial
letter and a tail-piece."

"Couldn't be done here. We haven't the touch. We're good in some
things, but this isn't in our way," said Beaton, stubbornly. "I can't
think of a man who could do it; that is, among those that would."

"Well, think of some woman, then," said Fulkerson, easily. "I've got a
notion that the women could help us out on this thing, come to get 'em
interested. There ain't anything so popular as female fiction; why not
try female art?"

"The females themselves have been supposed to have been trying it for a
good while," March suggested; and Mr. Dryfoos laughed nervously; Beaton
remained solemnly silent.

"Yes, I know," Fulkerson assented. "But I don't mean that kind exactly.
What we want to do is to work the 'ewig Weibliche' in this concern. We
want to make a magazine that will go for the women's fancy every time.
I don't mean with recipes for cooking and fashions and personal gossip
about authors and society, but real high-tone literature that will show
women triumphing in all the stories, or else suffering tremendously.
We've got to recognize that women form three-fourths of the reading