TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

And cook’s name now? Mildred? Marian?—some name like that. Ah, she had forgotten—she did forget things. Fiery, like all red-haired women. Many a laugh they had had.She was always welcome in the kitchen. Shemade them laugh, she did. Things were betterthen than now.

She sighed; there was too much work for onewoman. She wagged her head this side and that.This had been the nursery. Why, it was alldamp in here; the plaster was falling. What-ever did they want to hang a beast’s skull there?gone mouldy too. And rats in all the attics.The rain came in. But they never sent; nevercame. Some of the locks had gone, so the doorsbanged. She didn’t like to be up here at duskalone neither. It was too much for one woman,too much, too much. She creaked, she moaned.She banged the door. She turned the key in thelock, and left the house shut up, locked, alone.9

The house was left; the house was deserted.It was left like a shell on a sandhill to fill withdry salt grains now that life had left it. The longnight seemed to have set in; the trifling airs,nibbling, the clammy breaths, fumbling, seemed212
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