d form, and
the family laughed at the violent enthusiasm which she could put into
the merest trifles.

"You're such a child over everything, Lesbia," Joan would remark
patronizingly.

Miss Joyce at any rate did not call her "a child" for any display of
enthusiasm. She "enthused" herself upon art matters, and her mental
atmosphere was sympathetic. Lesbia's footsteps quickened as she turned
down Mill Street and went into the cobbled courtyard of the old
Pilgrims' Inn. With a delighted thrill of anticipation she skipped up
the black oak staircase to the door of Miss Joyce's studio. Here her
enthusiasm was checked, for the little tin board nailed below the
knocker bore the unwelcome notice "Out".

Out--when she had come all that way on purpose. It was too aggravating.

"Yet it's my own silly fault for not asking her on Tuesday whether she'd
be in to-day. I might have known I'd have no luck," groused Lesbia.
"Well, I suppose there's nothing for it but to trot back again. It
really _is_ the limit. Hello! I believe somebody's in there after all.
Unless it's ghosts."

Faint explosions of mirth proceeding from the other side of the thick
door sounded more human than ghostly, despite the haunted character of
the house. Lesbia seized the knocker and gave a loud rap-tap. There was
a grating of chairs, and presently appeared the grinning face of one of
the art-metalwork pupils.

"Miss Joyce has only gone to the post. She won't be more than a few
minutes. Would you like to wait?"

Lesbia accepted the offered chair with alacrity. She sat watching the
two students as they returned to their work. They were quite young
girls, hardly older than herself. How glorious it must be for them, she
thought, to spend their time in this delightful studio, at a little
table under a window, melting their materials in a gas jet and turning
out such pretty things. The creative instinct, always very strongly
developed in Lesbia, rose rebelliously. Life would be far more worth
while spent in making beautiful artistic objects than in learning
certain school lessons that were apparently not much good to herself or
anyone else. She sighed as she watched the twisting of the ornament for
the edge of a brooch, and contrasted it with her morning's struggle over
certain geometrical problems and a piece of stiff Latin translation.

"People may say what they like about brain culture, but let me use my
hands!" she burst out impulsively.

The elder pupil