TO THE LIGHTHOUSEconscious of making a party together in a hollow,on an island; had their common cause againstthat fluidity out there. Mrs. Ramsay, who hadbeen uneasy, waiting for Paul and Minta to comein, and unable, she felt, to settle to things, nowfelt her uneasiness changed to expectation. Fornow they must come, and Lily Briscoe, trying toanalyse the cause of the sudden exhilaration,compared it with that moment on the tennis lawn,when solidity suddenly vanished, and such vastspaces lay between them; and now the sameeffect was got by the many candles in the sparelyfurnished room, and theauncurtained windows,and the bright mask—like look of faces seen bycandlelight,. Some weight was taken off them;anything might happen, she felt. They mustcome now, Mrs. Ramsay thought, looking at thedoor, and at that instant, Minta Doyle, PaulRayley, and a maid carrying a great dish in herhands came in together. They were awfully late;they were horribly late, Minta said, as they foundtheir way to different ends of the table.

‘ I lost my brooch ——my grandmother’sbrooch," said Minta with a sound of lamentationin her voice, and a suifusion in her large browneyes, looking down, looking up, as she sat byMr. Ramsay, which roused his chivalry so thathe bantered her,1 52