Six decorative feather designs

The crate from Calcutta came off the dray this morning with its lid already split, and Mr Ashdown made me sort the lot before the foreman could see the damage. Three hundred and eleven quills, he said, and not one of them to be wasted. I spent the whole afternoon at the long table under the skylight, lifting each one by its base and turning it to the light the way you showed me, so the barbs fanned out like the spokes of a wheel.

The ones with the painted vanes are the trouble. Someone out there takes a pen to them, dotting the edges in rows so fine you need a glass to count, then draws little diamonds down the spine and curls scrolls at the tip like a fiddlehead. Mr Ashdown says the dealers do it to make a feather worth a shilling more. I think it is because they cannot bear to leave a plain thing plain, and I have decided I like them for it.

I kept one back. It is the grey one with the wash along its edge, the colour of rain on the river, and its tip curls over on itself as if it has just stopped to listen. I have tucked it in my hatband under the brim, where no one checks.

Tomorrow we start on the ostrich plumes for the Easter order. Come home soon, or write, and tell me whether the sea was as green as you said.

Your loving sister, Ada