Script letter B with rose and sparkles

The rain has been coming sideways down the market since seven, so I've had the awning pegged low and my sleeves rolled over the board all morning. Mrs Okafor three stalls down keeps sending her boy across with tea in a jam jar, which is kinder than the council has been. I'm lettering the new sign for the bookbinder on Cattle Row, the big curling B with a rose at the top that he asked for. He wants it gold leafed. I told him gilt was dear, and he said his father never once skimped, so I've put the sparkles in with a sable brush instead, two little stars to catch the light when the weather lifts.

I pricked the pattern through the paper the way Dad taught us, then ran the thin lines with a quill and a steady hand, because the trick with a capital like this is to let the stroke swell and thin like a breath. The leaves came last. I did five along the stems and looked at the sixth for an age before I understood I didn't want to paint it. The loop at the bottom stops short of the rim, and a row of dots carries on past it, out over the edge of the board, the way the tram lines used to run off towards the sea before they pulled them up.

I've left that dotted line open on purpose. It seemed wrong to close it when you're the one who ought to finish it. Come home at Easter, bring your good chisels and your bad temper, and we'll gild the last leaf together. Mind the wet step by the fishmonger's, it's been slick all week.

Your sister, Nell