Ornate lily with green leaf and swirls

The lily came off the press this morning with its stamens wrong. Mr Ashworth wanted them orange, the colour of the lamp oil you used to fill on the tug, and I told him the dye would bleed into the paper. He said then let it bleed, Miss Hale, buyers in Manchester don't stop for a flower that's modest. So I have spent the afternoon at the back bench with a fine nib, filling every petal with the nonsense you once scratched into the slate at Sunday school: dots, swirls, little paisley teardrops, hatching that crosses and recrosses until the black and grey look almost like lace.

The green leaf is the only plain thing on the sheet, though I hatched that too, because the tendril curling off its tip is the mooring rope you hated coiling. Mother came in while I was working and asked whether a lily could be made to look like anything but a funeral. I said yes, if you gave it enough swirls to keep it from thinking about the funeral.

I have kept one proof back with the bud still blank. I thought I might post it to Valparaíso so you could fill it in yourself, the way you filled my school atlas with ships and sea monsters. You always said the ocean was too big to draw, so you may as well practise on the smallest bit of it.

Mind the stamens when you do. I have left the purple tips bare, so you will know which way is home.

Your sister, Ruth