TO THE LIGHTHOUSEMrs. Bast`s son, caught the rats, and cut the grass.They had the builders. Attended with the creaking of hinges and the screeching of bolts, theslamming and banging of damp—swollen woodwork, some rusty laborious birth seemed to betaking place, as the women, stooping, rising, groaning, singing, slapped and slammed, upstairs nownow down in the cellars. Oh, they said, the work!

They drank their tea in the bedroom sometimes, or in the study; breaking off work atmid-day with the smudge on their faces, and theirold hands clasped and cramped with the broomhandles. Flopped on chairs they contemplatednow the magniiicent conquest over taps and bath;now the more arduous, more partial triumphover long rows of books, black as ravens once,now white—stained, breeding pale mushrooms andsecreting furtive spiders. Once more, as she feltthe tea warm in her, the telescope fitted itself toMrs. McNab’s eyes, and in a ring of light sh€saw the old gentleman, lean as a rake, wagginghis head, as she came up with the washing,talking to himself, she supposed, on the lawnHe never noticed her. Some said he was dead;some said she was dead. Which was it? l\/USBast didn’t know for certain either. The younggentleman was dead. That she was sure. Sh¤had read his name in the papers.216

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