Faint explosions of mirth proceeding from the other side of the thick door sounded more human than ghostly, despite the haunted character of the house. Lesbia seized the knocker and gave a loud rap-tap. There was a grating of chairs, and presently appeared the grinning face of one of the art-metalwork pupils.
"Miss Joyce has only gone to the post. She won't be more than a few minutes. Would you like to wait?"
Lesbia accepted the offered chair with alacrity. She sat watching the two students as they returned to their work. They were quite young girls, hardly older than herself. How glorious it must be for them, she thought, to spend their time in this delightful studio, at a little table under a window, melting their materials in a gas jet and turning out such pretty things. The creative instinct, always very strongly developed in Lesbia, rose rebelliously. Life would be far more worth while spent in making beautiful artistic objects than in learning certain school lessons that were apparently not much good to herself or anyone else. She sighed as she watched the twisting of the ornament for the edge of a brooch, and contrasted it with her morning's struggle over certain geometrical problems and a piece of stiff Latin translation.
"People may say what they like about brain culture, but let me use my hands!" she burst out impulsively.
The elder pupil looked at her in astonishment.
"It takes brains too for this kind of work, I can tell you," she remarked. "You have to have all your wits about you, or you make silly mistakes and spoil things."
"I only wish I'd the chance to try," said Lesbia.
But at that moment Miss Joyce returned. She came bustling in, with a little paper bag in her hand, surprised to see Lesbia, but very kind about it.
"You must stay and have tea," she declared hospitably. "I've just been out for some buns. Sybil, is the kettle boiling? We always make ourselves tea about this time."
The kettle on the gas-ring was almost boiling over. The pupils put down their tools and helped to set out the pale-yellow tea-service. There was a pot of striped purple crocuses on the tea-table, and a big jar of sallow "palm" and hazel catkins standing upon the floor. The March sunshine, flooding through a diamond-paned window, lighted up a blue vase full of Lent lilies. Lesbia, sinking into a basket-chair—the room had so many comfortable chairs—enjoyed her tasteful surroundings with the art-hunger of one whose æsthetic cravings have been systematically starved.