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132 TO THE LIGHTHOUSEapproving of the dignity of the trees’ stillness, andnow again of the superb upward rise (like the beakof a ship up a wave) of the elm branches as the windraised them. For it was windy (she stood a momentto look out). It was windy, so that the leaves nowand then brushed open a star, and the stars them-selves seemed to be shaking and darting light andtrying to flash out between the edges of the leaves.Yes, that was done then, accomplished; and as withall things done, become solemn. Now one thoughtof it, cleared of chatter and emotion, it seemedalways to have been, only was shown now, and sobeing shown struck everything into stability. Theywould, she thought, going on again, however longthey lived, come back to this night; this moon; thiswind; this house: and to her too. It flattered her,where she was most susceptible of flattery, to thinkhow, wound about in their hearts, however long theylived she would be woven; and this, and this, andthis, she thought, going upstairs, laughing, but affec-tionately, at the sofa on the landing (her mother’s)at the rocking-chair (her father’s); at the map of theHebrides. All that would be revived again in thelives of Paul and Minta; ‘the Rayleys’—she triedthe new name over; and she felt, with her hand onthe nursery door, that community of feeling withother people which emotion gives as if the walls ofpartition had become so thin that practically (thefeeling was one of relief and happiness) it was all onestream, and chairs, tables, maps, were hers, weretheirs, it did not matter whose, and Paul and Mintawould carry it on when she was dead.

She turned the handle, firmly, lest it should squeak,