TO THE LIGHTHoUsEchildren———he reminded himself. And he wouldhave been a beast and a cur to wish a single thingaltered. Andrew would be a better man thanhe had been. Prue would be a beauty, her mothersaid. They would stem the flood a bit. That wasa good bit of work on the whole——his eightchildren. They showed he did not damn the poorlittle universe entirely, for on an evening like this,he thought, looking at the land dwindling away,the little island seemed pathetically small, halfswallowed up in the sea.‘ Poor little place," he murmured with a sigh.

She heard him. He said the most melancholythings, but she noticed that directly he had saidthem he always seemed more cheerful than usual.All this phrase—making was a game, she thought,for if she had said half what he said, she wouldhave blown her brains out by now.

It annoyed her, this phrase—making, and shesaid to him, in a matter-of-fact way, that it wasa perfectly lovely evening. And what was hegroaning about, she asked, half laughing, halfcomplaining, for she guessed what he was thinkinghe would have written better books if he hadnot married.

He was not complaining, he said. She knewthat he did not complain. She knew that he hadnothing whatever to complain of. And he seized1 Io