Hatched rose on a upper back

Master has set the rose plate on my bench again, the big one for Hollis and Sons' spring catalogue, and I am to do the hatching while he sleeps off his dinner. He says a rose is only as honest as its shadows. I told him a rose is only as honest as the man who pays for the ink, but he does not laugh at that any more than he laughs at anything.

The copper is cold until the lamp warms it. I cut the outer petals first, the wide ones that fold back like the lip of a bowl, then the inner cup, which is the hard part, because every line must be finer than a hair and must lean the same way or the bloom looks as if it is falling over. By four o'clock my wrist aches and the lamp smokes. Across the lane the baker is already coughing up the first batch, and the smell of scorched crust comes in under the door.

Yesterday I stopped at the leaves and found I had hatched the stem darker than the flower, so the whole thing looked like it was lifting its head out of a well. I meant to scrape it back. Instead I left it, and this morning Master held the proof to the window, said nothing for a long while, then asked whose hand had done the thorns. I said mine. He nodded and folded the proof into his coat.

Keep the thorns. I will be careful with the rest.

Your loving sister, Ada