" YES, of course, if it's fine to-morrow," said Mrs.
Ramsay, " But you'll have to be up with the
lark/' she added.

To her son these words conveyed an extra-
ordinary joy, as if it were settled the expedition
were bound to take place, and the wonder to
which he had looked forward, for years and years
it seemed, was, after a night's darkness and a day's
sail, within touch. Since he belonged, even at
the age of six, to that great clan which cannot
keep this feeling separate from that, but must let
future prospects, with their joys and sorrows,
cloud what is actually at hand, since to such people
even in earliest childhood any turn in the wheel
of sensation has the power to crystallise and
transfix the moment upon which its gloom or
radiance rests, James Ramsay, sitting on the floor
cutting out pictures from the illustrated catalogue
of the Army and Navy Stores, endowed the
picture of a refrigerator as his mother spoke with
heavenly bliss. It was fringed with joy* The

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