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THE WINDOWposely; and if he did that, how could she see, was ittoo long, was it too short? she asked.

She looked up—what demon possessed him, heryoungest, her cherished?—and saw the room, saw thechairs, thought them fearfully shabby. Their en-trails, as Andrew said the other day, were all overthe floor; but then what was the point, she asked, ofbuying good chairs to let them spoil up here allthrough the winter when the house, with only one oldwoman to see to it, positively dripped with wet?Never mind, the rent was precisely twopence half-penny; the children loved it; it did her husband goodto be three thousand, or if she must be accurate, threehundred miles from his libraries and his lectures andhis disciples; and there was room for visitors. Mats,camp beds, crazy ghosts of chairs and tables whoseLondon life of service was done—they did wellenough here; and a photograph or two, and books.Books, she thought, grew of themselves. She neverhad time to read them. Alas! even the books that hadbeen given her and inscribed by the hand of the poethimself: "For her whose wishes must be obeyed" . . . "The happier Helen of our days" . . . dis-graceful to say, she had never read them. AndCroom on the Mind and Bates on the Savage Cus-toms of Polynesia ("My dear, stand still," she said)—neither of those could one send to the Lighthouse.43