ined walls were covered with Jane Lavinia's pictures--most of
them pen-and-ink sketches, with a few flights into water colour. Aunt
Rebecca sniffed at them and deplored the driving of tacks into the
plaster. Aunt Rebecca thought Jane Lavinia's artistic labours a flat
waste of time, which would have been much better put into rugs and
crochet tidies and afghans. All the other girls in Chestercote made
rugs and tidies and afghans. Why must Jane Lavinia keep messing with
ink and crayons and water colours?

Jane Lavinia only knew that she _must_--she could not help it. There
was something in her that demanded expression thus.

When Mr. Stephens, who was a well-known artist and magazine
illustrator, came to Chestercote because his wife's father, Nathan
Whittaker, was ill, Jane Lavinia's heart had bounded with a shy hope.
She indulged in some harmless manoeuvring which, with the aid of
good-natured Mrs. Whittaker, was crowned with success. One day, when
Mr. Whittaker was getting better, Mr. Stephens had asked her to show
him some of her work. Jane Lavinia, wearing the despised sailor hat,
had gone over to the Whittaker place with some of her best sketches.
She came home again feeling as if all the world and herself were
transfigured.

She looked out from the window of her little room with great dreamy
brown eyes, seeing through the fir boughs the golden western sky
beyond, serving as a canvas whereon her fancy painted glittering
visions of her future. She would go to New York--and study--and work,
oh, so hard--and go abroad--and work harder--and win success--and be
great and admired and famous--if only Aunt Rebecca--ah! if only Aunt
Rebecca! Jane Lavinia sighed. There was spring in the world and spring
in Jane Lavinia's heart; but a chill came with the thought of Aunt
Rebecca, who considered tidies and afghans nicer than her pictures.

"But I'm going, anyway," said Jane Lavinia decidedly. "If Aunt Rebecca
won't give me the money, I'll find some other way. I'm not afraid of
any amount of work. After what Mr. Stephens said, I believe I could
work twenty hours out of the twenty-four. I'd be content to live on a
crust and sleep in a garret--yes, and wear sailor hats with stiff bows
and blue roses the year round."

Jane Lavinia sighed in luxurious renunciation. Oh, it was good to be
alive--to be a girl of seventeen, with wonderful ambitions and all the
world before her! The years of the future sparkled and gleamed
alluringly.