TO THE LIGHTHOUSEfloor above their heads, she thought, still thinkinghow annoying Charles Tansley was. For neither ofthem slept well; they were excitable children, andsince he said things like that about the Lighthouse,it seemed to her likely that he would knock a pileof books over, just as they were going to sleep,clumsily sweeping them off the table with his elbow.For she supposed that he had gone upstairs to work.Yet he looked so desolate; yet she would feel re-lieved when he went; yet she would see that he wasbetter treated tomorrow; yet he was admirable withher husband; yet his manners certainly wanted im-proving; yet she liked his laugh—thinking this, asshe came downstairs, she noticed that she could nowsee the moon itself through the staircase window—the yellow harvest moon—and turned, and they sawher, standing above them on the stairs.

"That’s my mother," thought Prue. Yes; Mintashould look at her; Paul Rayley should look ather. That is the thing itself, she felt, as if there wereonly one person like that in the world; her mother.And, from having been quite grown up, a momentbefore, talking with the others, she became a childagain, and what they had been doing was a game,and would her mother sanction their game, or con-demn it, she wondered. And thinking what a chanceit was for Minta and Paul and Lily to see her, and174

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