TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

chairs, tables, maps, were hers, were theirs, it did
not matter whose, and Paul and Minta would
carry it on when she was dead.

She turned the handle, firmly, lest it should
squeak, and went in, pursing her lips slightly, as
if to remind herself that she must not speak aloud.
But directly she came in she saw, with annoyance,
that the precaution was not needed. The children
were not asleep. It was most annoying. Mildred
should be more careful. There was James wide
awake and Cam sitting bolt upright, and Mildred
out of bed in her bare feet, and it was almost
eleven and they were all talking. What was the
matter? It was that horrid skull again. She had
told Mildred to move it, but Mildred, of course,
had forgotten, and now there was Cam wide
awake and James wide awake quarrelling when
they ought to have been asleep hours ago. What
had possessed Edward to send them this horrid
skull? She had been so foolish as to let them nail
it up there. It was nailed fast, Mildred said, and
Cam couldn't go to sleep with it in the room, and
James screamed if she touched it.

Then Cam must go to sleep (it had great horns
said Cam—) must go to sleep and dream of lovely-
palaces, said Mrs. Ramsay, sitting down on the
bed by her side. She could see the horns, Cam
said, all over the room. It was true. Wherever

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