TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

And cook's name now? Mildred? Marian?
—some name like that. Ah, she had forgotten
—she did forget things. Fiery, like all red-
haired women. Many a laugh they had had.
She was always welcome in the kitchen. She
made them laugh, she did. Things were better
then than now.

She sighed; there was too much work for one
woman. She wagged her head this side and that.
This had been the nursery. Why, it was all
damp in here; the plaster was falling. What-
ever did they want to hang a beast's skull there?
gone mouldy too. And rats in all the attics.
The rain came in. But they never sent; never
came. Some of the locks had gone, so the doors
banged. She didn't like to be up here at dusk-
alone neither. It was too much for one woman,
too much, too much. She creaked, she moaned.
She banged the door. She turned the key in the
lock, and left the house shut up, locked, alone.

The house was left; the house was deserted.
It was left like a shell on a sandhill to fill with
dry salt grains now that life had left it. The long
night seemed to have set in; the trifling airs,
nibbling, the clammy breaths, fumbling, seemed

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