Near the beginning of her story ‘Prelude’, Katherine Mansfield makes one brief mention of Quarantine Island, in Wellington Harbour. The Burnell family are moving from their house near the centre of town to a more sprawling property in the country, and Lottie and Kezia, the two youngest daughters, are the last to leave. It is evening when they set out on a buggy sent for them, and it is the first time they have been out this late; excitedly, they turn back towards the neighbourhood where they have spent their entire lives, noticing how much smaller these familiar houses seem in the darkness, before seeing the stars in the night sky and the moon hanging over the harbour. It is at this point that they notice Quarantine Island's lighthouse shining in the middle of the bay.

Though Mansfield does not dwell on this detail – choosing instead to follow the girls as their buggy reaches the top of a hill, before they lose sight of the harbour altogether – the image of a lone, shining island in the middle of a glimmering bay anchors the rest of this scene, for it is where the overarching sense of hush evoked by the night sky, the city lights, the stars, the moon and the gold-tinged waves comes to rest.