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able to stand tomorrow if you don’t learn how to release.”
    “How can I, when I have to stay so still?”
    “It’s as if your skin is a shell,” said Miss Lipscombe, after a moment’s thought, “but inside that shell everything is soft. Like a chocolate cordial.”
    Jane had never had a chocolate cordial, but she was grateful for the advice. Rossetti had told her he thought the other girl a very good model.
    Miss Lipscombe passed her a plate of bread-and-butter sandwiches, but although Jane had not had breakfast, the proximity to Rossetti made her feel too ill to eat. Instead she gathered her courage and asked her companion a question.
    “Is Mr. Rossetti really famous in London?” she ventured.
    Miss Lipscombe’s eyes blazed. “You don’t know?” she asked. Daintily she wiped her lips with a linen napkin and leaned over to whisper in Jane’s ear. “He’s a scandal,” she said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, he’s the leader of a group of artists called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. They make terribly shocking paintings. The Academy won’t have them. They won’t exhibit them.”
    “Why not?” asked Jane, trying to imagine what could be as shocking as that.
    “I don’t know, exactly,” admitted Miss Lipscombe. “All I know is that in London they are notorious, Mr. Rossetti most of all.”
    “And your father let you come?” asked Jane wonderingly.
    “Well, he doesn’t know,” said Miss Lipscombe with a wink. “I’m supposed to be at my elocution lessons, but what fun is that? I begged Mummy and she agreed that a girl should have a little adventure before she’s married.”
    “You’re going to be married?”
    Miss Lipscombe smoothed her radiant hair. “Of course,” she said. “In twelve months’ time. To one of three gentlemen; I just haven’t decided which.”
    “Oh,” said Jane.
    “If Mr. Rossetti were richer, I might think about marrying him,” Miss Lipscombe went on, eyeing her biscuit thoughtfully. “But my father won’t let me go to anyone with less than five hundred pounds.”
    “Mr. Rossetti isn’t rich?” asked Jane with a sinking heart.
    “Oh no,” said Miss Lipscombe. “He’s got nothing. His father is a professor or is writing a book or something. His mother takes in language pupils, and so does his sister.”
    “But his clothes, his manners…,” Jane sputtered helplessly.
    “I didn’t say he wasn’t a gentleman,” said Miss Lipscombe indignantly. “But Morris pays for everything. He’s the rich one.”
    It was a terrible blow. Jane knew very well that a man without money of his own could not afford to marry her.
     
    The post came at twelve thirty and the artists wandered over to eat biscuits and read their letters.
    “One from your mother, Ned,” said Rossetti. He handed the letter to Burne-Jones. “I’m sure we’ll all be fascinated by the latest account of her rheumatism. One for me from my brother,” Rossetti went on. “If it contains a check, we’ll end work early and go to the Lamb and Thistle.”
    A cheer went up from the other young men. Rossetti deftly sliced the envelope with his knife and pulled out a check. “Thirty pounds,” he announced.
    “A cheer for William Rossetti,” said Burne-Jones, “who puts up with your folderol so patiently.”
    “I won’t ask you what you mean by ‘folderol,’” said Rossetti, “as I am in too good a mood to argue with you. You, dear Ned, have another, from sweet Georgiana.” He held the letter over his head and Burne-Jones, who had his fragile dignity to preserve, waited impatiently until Rossetti got bored with the teasing and handed him the letter.
    “They’re engaged,” Miss Lipscomb said, nodding at Burne-Jones, who was fiery red and smiling a tiny smile as he read his letter. “They can’t marry until she’s eighteen, and she can’t be more than fifteen now.”
    “Anything from Emma?” inquired Ford Madox Brown. He was older than the others and Jane thought he looked