TO THE LIGHTHOUSEwas a disreputable old bird, with half his wing fea-thers missing. He was like some seedy old gentlemanin a top hat she had seen playing the horn in frontof a public house.

‘Look!’ she said, laughing. They were actually fight-ing. Joseph and Mary were fighting. Anyhow theyall went up again, and the air was shoved aside bytheir black wings and cut into exquisite scimitarshapes. The movement of the wings beating out, out,out — she could never describe it accurately enoughto please herself — was one of the loveliest of all toher. Look at that, she said to Rose, hoping that Rosewould see it more clearly than she could. For one’schildren so often gave one’s own perceptions a littlethrust forwards.

But which was it to be? They had all the trays of herjewel-case open. The gold necklace, which was Ital-ian, or the opal necklace, which Uncle James hadbrought her from India; or should she wear heramethysts?

‘Choose, dearests, choose,’ she said, hoping thatthey would make haste.

But she let them take their time to choose: she letRose, particularly, take up this and then that, andhold her jewels against the black dress, for this littleceremony of choosing jewels, which was gone throughevery night, was what Rose liked best, she knew. Shehad some hidden reason of her own for attachinggreat importance to this choosing what her motherwas to wear. What was the reason, Mrs. Ramsay won-dered, standing still to let her clasp the necklace shehad chosen, divining, through her own past, somedeep, some buried, some quite speechless feeling that96
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