Smiling, for an admirable idea had flashed uponher this very second—William and Lily should marry
—she took the heather mixture stocking, with itscriss-cross of steel needles at the mouth of it, andmeasured it against James’s leg.‘My dear, stand still,’ she said, for in his jealousy,not liking to serve as measuring-block for the Light-house keeper’s little boy, James fidgeted purposely;and if he did that, how could she see, was it too long,was it too short? she asked.
She looked up—what demon possessed him, heryoungest, her cherished?—and saw the room, sawthe chairs, thought them fearfully shabby. Theirentrails, as Andrew said the other day, were all overthe floor; but then what was the point, she askedherself, of buying good chairs to let them spoil uphere all through the winter when the house, with onlyone old woman to see to it, positively dripped withwet? Never mind: the rent was precisely twopencehalfpenny; the children loved it; it did her husbandgood to be three thousand, or if she must be accurate,three hundred miles from his library and his lecturesand his disciples; and there was room for visitors.Mats, camp beds, crazy ghosts of chairs and tableswhose London life of service was done—they didwell enough here; and a photograph or two, and
