THE WINDOW

sitting and looking, sitting and looking, with her
work in her hands until she became the thing she
looked at—that light for example. And it would
lift up on it some little phrase or other which had
been lying in her mind like that—" Children don't
forget, children don't forget "—which she would
repeat and begin adding to it. It will end, It will
end, she said. It will come, it will come, when
suddenly she added. We are in the hands of the
Lord.

But instantly she was annoyed with herself for
saying that. Who had said it ? not she ; she had
been trapped into saying something she did not
mean. She looked up over her knitting and met
the third stroke and it seemed to her like her own
eyes meeting her own eyes, searching as she alone
could search into her mind and her heart, purifying
out of existence that lie, any lie. She praised
herself in praising the light, without vanity, for
she was stern, she was searching, she was beautiful
like that light. It was odd, she thought, how if
one was alone, one leant to things, inanimate
things; trees, streams, flowers; felt they ex-
pressed one; felt they became one; felt they
knew one, in a sense were one; felt an irrational
tenderness thus (she looked at that long steady
light) as for oneself. There rose, and she looked
and looked with her needles suspended, there

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