h the notes pricked on a
red stave. The firm wrote civilly, telling him that his work, though
good, was not what they wanted, and enclosing an illuminated text. "We
have great demand for this sort of thing," they concluded, "and if you
care to attempt something in this style we should be pleased to look
at it." The said text was "Thou, God, seest me." The letter was of a
degraded form, bearing much the same relation to the true character as a
"churchwarden gothic" building does to Canterbury Cathedral; the colours
were varied. The initial was pale gold, the _h_ pink, the _o_ black, the
_u_ blue, and the first letter was somehow connected with a bird's nest
containing the young of the pigeon, who were waited on by the female
bird.

"What a pretty text," said Miss Deacon. "I should like to nail it up in
my room. Why don't you try to do something like that, Lucian? You might
make something by it."

"I sent them these," said Lucian, "but they don't like them much."

"My dear boy! I should think not! Like them! What were you thinking of to
draw those queer stiff flowers all round the border? Roses? They don't
look like roses at all events. Where do you get such ideas from?"

"But the design is appropriate; look at the words."

"My dear Lucian, I can't read the words; it's such a queer old-fashioned
writing. Look how plain that text is; one can see what it's about. And
this other one; I can't make it out at all."

"It's a Latin hymn."

"A Latin hymn? Is it a Protestant hymn? I may be old-fashioned, but
_Hymns Ancient and Modern_ is quite good enough for me. This is the
music, I suppose? But, my dear boy, there are only four lines, and who
ever heard of notes shaped like that: you have made some square and some
diamond-shape? Why didn't you look in your poor mother's old music? It's
in the ottoman in the drawing-room. I could have shown you how to make
the notes; there are crotchets, you know, and quavers."

Miss Deacon laid down the illuminated _Urbs Beata_ in despair; she felt
convinced that her cousin was "next door to an idiot."

And he went out into the garden and raged behind a hedge. He broke two
flower-pots and hit an apple-tree very hard with his stick, and then,
feeling more calm, wondered what was the use in trying to do anything.
He would not have put the thought into words, but in his heart he was
aggrieved that his cousin liked the pigeons and the text, and did not
like his emblematical roses and the La