TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

the house had not been cleaned as she could have
wished. It was beyond one person's strength
to get it straight now. She was too old. Her
legs pained her. All those books needed to be
laid out on the grass in the sun; there was plaster
fallen in the hall; the rain-pipe had blocked
over the study window and let the water in; the
carpet was ruined quite. But people should come
themselves; they should have sent somebody
down to see. For there were clothes in the cup-
boards; they had left clothes in all the bedrooms.
What was she to do with them? They had the
moth in them—Mrs. Ramsay's things. Poor
lady! She would never want them again. She
was dead, they said; years ago, in London.
There was the old grey cloak she wore gardening
(Mrs. McNab fingered it.) She could see her,
as she came up the drive with the washing,
stooping over her flowers (the garden was a
pitiful sight now, all run to riot, and rabbits
scuttling at you out of the beds)—she could see
her with one of the children by her in that grey
cloak. There were boots and shoes; and a brush
and comb left on the dressing-table, for all the
world as if she expected to come back to-morrow.
(She had died very sudden at the end, they said.)
And once they had been coming, but had put off
coming, what with the war, and travel being so
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