THE LIGHTHOUSESo they would talk as usual, laughing, among thechildren. All would be as usual, save only for somequiver, as of a blade in the air, which came and wentbetween them as if the usual sight of the children sit-ting round their soup plates had freshened itself intheir eyes after that hour among the pears and thecabbages. Especially, Lily thought, Mrs. Ramsaywould glance at Prue. She sat in the middle betweenbrothers and sisters, always so occupied, it seemed,seeing that nothing went wrong that she scarcely spokeherself. How Prue must have blamed herself for thatearwig in the milk! How white she had gone whenMr. Ramsay threw his plate through the window!How she drooped under those long silences betweenthem! Anyhow, her mother now would seem to bemaking it up to her; assuring her that everything waswell; promising her that one of these days that samehappiness would be hers. She had enjoyed it for lessthan a year, however.

She had let the flowers fall from her basket, Lilythought, screwing up her eyes and standing back as ifto look at her picture, which she was not touching,however, with all her faculties in a trance, frozen oversuperficially but moving underneath with extremespeed.

She let her flowers fall from her basket, scattered andtumbled them on to the grass and, reluctantly andhesitatingly, but without question or complaint — hadshe not the faculty of obedience to perfection? — wenttoo. Down fields, across valleys, white, flower-strewn

that was how she would have painted it. The hillswere austere. It was rocky; it was steep. The wavessounded hoarse on the stones beneath. They went,23316 · L.
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