TO THE LIGHTHOUSELangley; he had been round the world dozens oftimes, but he told me he never suffered as he didwhen my husband took him there. Are you a goodsailor, Mr. Tansley?" she asked.

Mr. Tansley raised a hammer: swung it high inair; but realising, as it descended, that he could notsmite that butterfly with such an instrument as this,said only that he had never been sick in his life. Butin that one sentence lay compact, like gunpowder,that his grandfather was a fisherman; his father achemist; that he had worked his way up entirelyhimself; that he was proud of it; that he was CharlesTansley—a fact that nobody there seemed to real-ise; but one of these days every single person wouldknow it. He scowled ahead of him. He could almostpity these mild cultivated people, who would beblown sky high, like bales of wool and barrels ofapples, one of these days by the gunpowder thatwas in him.

"Will you take me, Mr. Tansley?" said Lily,quickly, kindly, for, of course, if Mrs. Ramsay saidto her, as in effect she did, "I am drowning, my dear,in seas of fire. Unless you apply some balm to theanguish of this hour and say something nice to thatyoung man there, life will run upon the rocks—in-deed I hear the grating and the growling at this min-ute. My nerves are taut as fiddle strings. Another138

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