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TO THE LIGHTHOUSEalso. Most leather was mere brown paper and card-board. He looked complacently at his foot, still heldin the air. They had reached, she felt, a sunny islandwhere peace dwelt, sanity reigned and the sun forever shone, the blessed island of good boots. Herheart warmed to him. "Now let me see if you can tiea knot," he said. He poohpoohed her feeble system.He showed her his own invention. Once you tied it,it never came undone. Three times he knotted hershoe; three times he unknotted it.

Why, at this completely inappropriate moment,when he was stooping over her shoe, should shebe so tormented with sympathy for him that, as shestooped too, the blood rushed to her face, and,thinking of her callousness (she had called him aplay-actor) she felt her eyes swell and tingle withtears? Thus occupied he seemed to her a figure ofinfinite pathos. He tied knots. He bought boots.There was no helping Mr. Ramsay on the journey hewas going. But now just as she wished to say some-thing, could have said something, perhaps, herethey were—Cam and James. They appeared on theterrace. They came, lagging, side by side, a serious,melancholy couple.

But why was it like that that they came? Shecould not help feeling annoyed with them; theymight have come more cheerfully; they might have230