Joyful script lettering with leaf sprigs

Your letter came on Tuesday with the post van, and I have read it four times standing at the scullery sink, which is where I do my best reading now that Dad has the front room and his chair. You asked whether I am managing. I am. The bay tree by the gate came through the frost, and I cut a sprig on Sunday and pressed it inside the lid of the biscuit tin so the whole kitchen smells of it when I bake. I've folded another sprig into this envelope. Don't let it crumble on the mantelpiece before you've looked at it.

Mrs Pellow from chapel asked me to sign the book for the harvest supper, and I wrote my name and then, without thinking, a word beside it in my best hand. She leaned over my shoulder to read it and laughed. Joyful, she said. That's a funny thing to put. I told her I'd only meant it as a joke, and she said she could tell I hadn't, and then she went off to fetch the urn before I could explain.

I couldn't have explained anyway. You know how the town is in November, with the lamps lit at four and the lane gone to mud. I have been walking to the post office every morning just to be out of the house, and this week I noticed the hedge behind the lane has put out new shoots, green as anything, hardly believing it's allowed to in the middle of winter. I stood there a long while with the cold coming through my gloves.

So that's the news. Dad sends his love, though he'd never say it. Write soon, and tell me what they feed you in that boarding house, because I want to know whether you're eating or just pushing it round the plate like you did at Christmas.

Your loving sister, Margaret