`` You 'll do something yet , '' she said . `` Mr. Stephens said you would . Oh , I like you , Jane Lavinia , you dear thing ! Sometimes I have n't liked you because you 're nothing to look at , and I did n't suppose you could really do anything worthwhile . But I do like you now after what Mr. Stephens said about your drawings . '' Jane Lavinia smiled radiantly into the little cracked glass . Just then she was pretty , with the glow on her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes . Her uncertainly tinted hair and an all-too-certain little tilt of her nose no longer troubled her . Such things did not matter ; nobody would mind them in a successful artist . And Mr. Stephens had said that she had talent enough to win success . Jane Lavinia sat down by her window , which looked west into a grove of firs . They grew thickly , close up to the house , and she could touch their wide , fan-like branches with her hand . Jane Lavinia loved those fir trees , with their whispers and sighs and beckonings , and she also loved her little shadowy , low-ceilinged room , despite its plainness , because it was gorgeous for her with visions and peopled with rainbow fancies . The stained 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. XXXXX , 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 .
Chestercote Lavinia Rebecca Stephens beckonings colours firs plainness tacks tidies