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263311So they would talk as usual. All would be as usual, save onlyfor some quiver of gaiety? tenderness? in the air which kept went & camebetween them as if the usual sight of the family dinner tabletaken on ameaninghad freshened itself in their eyes after that hour among the pears &the plums.Especially, Lily thought, Mrs. Ramsay kept glancing at hereldest daughter, Prue,.She sat in the middle betweenbrothers & sisters,always occupied, it seemed, even when she did nothing, in seeing thatwas still & silentnothing suddenly happened wrongly.She Prue mustShehave blamed herselfterribly for that earwig in the milk, Lily thought.(Oh Lord, ohLord, howdid any womanever paint apicture then, shethought.)She wentquite white.She hatedscenes.And now,hermother seemedto bechiding her, making it up to her; & assuringtoher that everything wasallright nowwell ag again; & from the to be promising herthat samehappiness -She had enjoyed it for less than a yearhowever.She had let the flowers fall from the basket -

For that was how she went, Lily thought, screwing up her eyes& standing back to get look once more at thatpicture; & her mindwith all her faculties in a trance;feeling very still, & helpless;& yet her stillnesshad anintensespeed in itAnother ph vision that; formingthe instant she heard of Prue'sdeath.She dropped all her flowers,scattered them & tumbledin the ?grassthem, & & reluctantly & hesitatingly,but - How could onewish to die at twety twenty-five? -but gathering herunquestioningly - had she not the faculty ofobedience, thatin to perfection, dignified not submissive? -PrueShewent;Andrew went; [In what fieldsdid they walk now?For all they were young.One didn't imagine that they]They went.But it seemed to herDown fields, across valleys;white, flower strewn.That was how she would have painted it.She imagined the austere hills; & the hoarse waves:The window at which she was looking was whitened by somedress behind it; oh & shoved open! - a re-arrangement whichdid not greatly matter: & now someone - w was trailing down, so overthe stepsThere was some one there.