TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

projectile dropped in mid career, and Cam came
lagging back, pulling a leaf by the way, to her
mother.

What was she dreaming about, Mrs. Ramsay
wondered, seeing her engrossed, as she stood
there, with some thought of her own, so that she
had to repeat the message twice—ask Mildred if
Andrew, Miss Doyle, and Mr. Rayley have come
back?—The words seemed to be dropped into a
well, where, if the waters were clear, they were
also so extraordinarily distorting that, even as they
descended, one saw them twisting about to make
Heaven knows what pattern on the floor of the
child's mind. What message would Cam give the
cook? Mrs. Ramsay wondered. And indeed it
was only by waiting patiently, and hearing that
there was an old woman in the kitchen with very
red cheeks, drinking soup out of a basin, that
Mrs. Ramsay at last prompted that parrot-like
instinct which had picked up Mildred's words
quite accurately and could now produce them, if
one waited, in a colourless singsong. Shifting
from foot to foot, Cam repeated the words,
" No, they haven't, and I've told Ellen to clear
away tea."

Minta Doyle and Paul Rayley had not come
back then. That could only mean, Mrs. Ramsay
thought, one thing. She must accept him, or she
88