I look horrid in it , Jane Lavinia had thought sorrowfully ; and then she had gone out and down the velvet-green springtime valley and over the sunny birch hill beyond with a lagging step and a rebellious heart . But Jane Lavinia came home walking as if on the clear air of the crystal afternoon , her small , delicate face aglow and every fibre of her body and spirit thrilling with excitement and delight . She forgot to fling the sailor hat into its box with her usual energy of dislike . Just then Jane Lavinia had a soul above hats . She looked at herself in the glass and nodded with friendliness . `` 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 XXXXX time , which would have been much better put into rugs and crochet tidies and afghans .
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