eemed to make
little difference to the wealth of bloom spread around. Lesbia loved the
Lent lilies with their short trumpets and faint delicious fragrance, so
redolent of the country. She revelled in all the spring flowers at dear
Dolmadoc, the great crown imperial lilies, with the tears inside their
dropping heads, the blue primroses in the cottage garden, the white
violets under the wall, the purple aubretia coming out on the rockery,
and the clumps of yellow cowslips that bordered the pathway. They seemed
so much cleaner and fresher than the flowers in town gardens or parks,
she liked to lay them against her cheek, and would sometimes go down on
her knees just to be near them where they grew. Old half-forgotten fairy
tales would come flooding back in the company of the flowers, and all
her most pronounced Celtic instincts seemed to crowd to the top.

Lesbia had a chance of exercising her artistic faculties on Easter
Saturday. The Websters always helped to decorate the church, and this
year the vicar's daughter was away, so they had been asked to undertake
pulpit, font, and lectern. They appointed their visitor chief authority,
and worked under her directions. With so much beautiful material in the
way of flowers, Lesbia thoroughly enjoyed herself, and evolved a pretty
scheme of decoration. She outlined the pulpit with ivy and bunches of
wild daffodils, tying large branches of blackthorn and catkin-covered
hazel to the candle-brackets; the lectern had a background of green and
a great sheaf of crown imperial lilies, while the base of the font was a
garden of green moss, with primroses peeping through in little clumps.

Other members of the congregation had been busy putting flowers along
the window ledges and twisting garlands of ivy round some of the
pillars, till the church looked a fragrant mass of lovely blossom,
dressed fitly for its great festival of Easter day.

"I'll come and make a sketch of it next week," thought Lesbia; "that
little bit with the font and the open door and the view down the valley
would be simply a picture, especially if I put Una sitting on the step
with her lap full of primroses. I can feel just how it ought to look, if
I can only paint it. The light and shade is exactly right in the
afternoon. Oh dear! I wish I could spend my days in painting. I'd rather
dab away at a canvas than do anything else in the world!"

The Websters were long-suffering towards Lesbia in allowing her leisure
to