TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to
her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over
and over again as she sat with the children the
words of some old cradle song, murmured by
nature, " I am guarding you—I am your sup-
port ", but at other times suddenly and unex-
pectedly, especially when her mind raised itself
slightly from the task actually in hand, had no
such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of
drums remorselessly beat the measure of life, made
one think of the destruction of the island and its
engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose clay
had slipped past in one quick doing after another
that it was all ephemeral as a rainbow—this sound
which had been obscured and concealed under the
other sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her curs
and made her look up with an impulse of terror.

They had ceased to talk; that was the explana-
tion. Falling in one second from the tension
which had gripped her to the other extreme which,
as if to recoup her for her unnecessary expense of
emotion, was cool, amused, and even faintly
malicious, she concluded that poor Charles
Tansley had been shed. That was of little
account to her. If her husband required sacrifices
(and indeed he did) she cheerfully offered up to him
Charles Tansley, who had snubbed her little boy.

One moment more, with her head t-aiWL she
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