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TO THE LIGHTHOUSEa note-book and pencil with which she wrote downin columns carefully ruled for the purpose wagesand spendings, employment and unemployment, inthe hope that thus she would cease to be a privatewoman whose charity was half a sop to her ownindignation, half a relief to her own curiosity, andbecome what with her untrained mind she greatlyadmired, an investigator, elucidating the socialproblem.

Insoluble questions they were, it seemed to her,standing there, holding James by the hand. He hadfollowed her into the drawing-room, that young manthey laughed at; he was standing by the table, fidget-ing with something, awkwardly, feeling himself outof things, as she knew without looking round. Theyhad all gone—the children; Minta Doyle and PaulRayley; Augustus Carmichael; her husband—theyhad all gone. So she turned with a sigh and said,"Would it bore you to come with me, Mr. Tansley?"

She had a dull errand in the town; she had aletter or two to write; she would be ten minutes per-haps; she would put on her hat. And, with herbasket and her parasol, there she was again, tenminutes later, giving out a sense of being ready, ofbeing equipped for a jaunt, which, however, shemust interrupt for a moment, as they passed thetennis lawn, to ask Mr. Carmichael, who was basking18