Eye, rose and leaves on a forearm

The Hollins boy came back for his eye on Tuesday, and I swear it was looking at me the whole time I fitted it. You'll think I've gone soft, but I hadn't the heart to tell Mr Hollins the new one was a shade too blue. Father always said a glass eye has to match the sound one or it stares like a dead fish, and I've spent six weeks getting the iris right, painting the thin rays in with a sable hair the way he taught me, then dotting the centre so it catches the light from the shop window.

The rose came in on Thursday. Mrs Abbot brought it wrapped in a tea towel, a pressed bloom from her mother's garden, and asked whether I could paint something like it on the back of a locket. I said I could, and then I went through the drawer of old pattern cards and found the one Father kept under the brass scale: the rope border, the feathered fern, and that single unblinking eye at the centre. He drew it the winter before he died. There was never a name written on it.

I think now it was meant for the girl who used to sit in the back of the shop and hold the lamp steady while he worked. I cannot tell you where she went. I only know the card was tucked inside the tin with her ribbon.

So I have put the eye back in the drawer and told Mrs Abbot the locket will take a fortnight. Come home for Sunday. Bring the good scissors, and tell Ada to stop wearing Father's coat.

Love, Margaret