Be extraordinary handwritten lettering

The bell-tower on Saltmere Quay has its new gold leaf now, and Master Aldous let me hold the brush for the numerals on the clock face. My hand shook so badly the first stroke bled into the ground coat, and I was sure he would send me back up the hill to the orphan house. Instead he laughed, took the brush from me, and made the loop of the S look as though it had always been there.

He has a habit I have not yet got used to. Before he paints any board, he pencils one line for himself along the top edge, then rubs it out with his thumb so nobody can read it. Yesterday I caught him doing it on the back of the harbourmaster's sign. Be extraordinary, it said, the letters leaning into one another like boats tied fast at a crowded jetty. I asked him why he hid it. He said the words were never meant for the sign itself, but for whoever stood in front of it on a wet morning and wanted to turn around and go home.

Then he showed me how to finish a line properly. The last letter must not stop at the baseline, he said, but drop below it and curl round like a rope thrown to a man in the water. Every good line needs somewhere to go. I have practised that tail on flour sacks, on the backs of bread bags, on the wall of the scullery, until my wrist aches.

Tonight, for the first time, it did not wobble. I hope you are eating properly and not giving your bread to the goats again.

Your loving sister, Ivy