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TO THE LIGHTHOUSEfine night, stirring a puddle, looking at a stone, ask-ing themselves "What am I," "What is this?" hadsuddenly an answer vouchsafed them: (they couldnot say what it was) so that they were warm in thefrost and had comfort in the desert. But Mrs.McNab continued to drink and gossip as before.

VI

The spring without a leaf to toss, bare and brightlike a virgin fierce in her chastity, scornful in herpurity, was laid out on fields wide-eyed and watchfuland entirely careless of what was done or thoughtby the beholders. [Prue Ramsay, leaning on herfather’s arm, was given in marriage. What, peoplesaid, could have been more fitting? And, they added,how beautiful she looked!]

As summer neared, as the evenings lengthened,there came to the wakeful, the hopeful, walking thebeach, stirring the pool, imaginations of thestrangest kind—of flesh turned to atoms whichdrove before the wind, of stars flashing in theirhearts, of cliff, sea, cloud, and sky brought pur-posely together to assemble outwardly the scatteredparts of the vision within. In those mirrors, theminds of men, in those pools of uneasy water, inwhich clouds for ever turn and shadows form,198