He had been very pleased that Mrs. Ramsay had called him in on the planning of the house, and that she had trusted him to find the right stuff for the curtains. She had asked his advice on other matters connected with the decorating and painting, and even on the placing of the pictures. He told Rose that this extra work provided him with a great chance, the first real chance he had ever had, and that it might mean great things for him. He and Rose both knew that he was fitted for something better than unrolling and rolling bolts of linen and cotton and serge over the counter all day long. He told Rose that miracles would never cease, because it was just at the moment when he was feeling himself to be of no importance to anybody at all in the world that Mrs. Ramsay had sent for him and started to talk to him ahout the way she wanted her new house to be.

It got on her mother’s nerves, the way they covered the kitchen table with scraps of velvet every evening and sat there together going over the scraps as though they were counting gold and diamonds. Her mother said it was getting to be too much of a good thing and that it was bad for Rose to sit there dreaming over things she could never have. Rose and her father were like two misers sitting at the table over their treasure while her mother stood and confronted them. At that time of the evening, after tea, Rose and her father generally had the kitchen to themselves. They had a small shop in what had once been a front sitting room, and Rose’s mother went in there after tea and sat there talking with anyone who cared to drop in and occasionally selling something — bread or cigarettes. She became more and more annoyed about the samples as the weeks wore on and still the color of the curtains had not been settled on by Mrs. Ramsay and still Rose’s father talked about them and about what Mrs. Ramsay had said to him.

“Mrs. Ramsay is making a fool of you and picking your brains for nothing,” Rose’s mother said. “And you are making a fool out of the child, giving her notions about herself and what she knows. What does that child know and what good would it do her if she did know anything? What chance has she got, and why can’t you leave her alone and let her learn her lessons? She has a bag of homework there, hasn’t she? She won’t thank you later on in life. Giving her ideas is all you are doing.”