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. 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 XXXXX her future .
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