TO THE LIGHTHOUSEbeach, stirred a puddle, looked at a stone, andasked themselves "What am I?" "What is this?"and suddenly an answer was vouchsafed them (whatit was they could not say): so that they were warm inthe frost and had comfort in the desert. But Mrs.McNab continued to drink and gossip as before.6The spring without a leaf to toss, bare andbright like a virgin fierce in her chastity, scornfulin her purity, was laid out on fields wide-eyed andwatchful and entirely careless of what was done orthought by the beholders.[Prue Ramsay, leaning on her father’s arm, wasgiven in marriage that May. What, people said,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, walkingthe beach, 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,204