"I can see your cover," she said, staring so fixedly at the ceiling that Lesbia instinctively looked there too. "It doesn't want realistic roses painted on it, but a decorative pattern. Don't put too much of it either. A design should never be overdone. My advice is, adapt your lotus pattern to it. It's far and away the best thing you've produced yet, and you may just as well use it. Put a piece at the top and a piece at the bottom, then in the middle paint a misty and rather impressionistic sketch of those old houses at the bottom of Mill Street--you can copy them from a photo--then bring your lettering right across your sketch. It ought to be very effective." "Why, so it would. I can almost see it," agreed Lesbia, with her eye on the carved boss that ornamented one of the beams of the studio roof. "I'll make a rough drawing of it to-night, on a piece of paper. May I bring it to school to show you before I begin to do it on the proper cardboard?" "Of course. I'll criticize it with pleasure. Now about this scrap album, is it entirely confined to antiquarian things? Why don't you put in a list of wild flowers found in the neighbourhood? And any nature notes you can?" "I hadn't thought of that." "They're always included in local guide-books, so I should imagine they might very well go in. Mr. Broughten would help you there." "Who's Mr. Broughten?" "A very clever botanist who lives in the set of chambers opposite. I'll take you to see him if you've finished your tea. Have you? Then come along. I know he's in, because we both came up the stairs together. Oh, don't look so scared, he won't gobble you up. He's an absolute old dear." It was getting late, but Lesbia put the thought of time resolutely away, for Miss Joyce would not listen to her faint expostulations, and hurried her, protesting indeed but a very willing victim, along the passage which led to Mr. Broughten's set of chambers. He was at home, and they were ushered into his study. Like the rest of the Pilgrims' Inn it was a quaint old room, with black oak beams and diamond-paned windows. The whole of the walls were lined with shelves, upon which were stored a vast collection of pressed flowers and ferns, a work which had occupied Mr. Broughten for most of his life. He was an old man now, and the hand that held his pen shook as he wrote. He rose with difficulty to receive his visitors, peering at them through his spectacles. Lesbia was afraid he did not seem very pleased at being interrupted, but, their errand once explained, he suddenly became extremely kind and interested. He hunted out several reports of the proceedings of a local Natural History Society, in which were given lists of the flora and fauna of the neighbourhood, and, after a moment's palpable hesitation, even offered to lend the pamphlets. "If you will promise _faithfully_ to bring them back. I lose so many books because people forget to _return_ them," he said emphatically.