THE WINDOW

with all that about his father and mother and
brothers and sisters, and she would see to it that
they didn't laugh at him any more; she would tell
Prue about it. What he would have liked, she
supposed, would have been to say how he had been
to Ibsen with the Ramsays, He was an awful
prig—oh yes, an insufferable bore. For, though
they had reached the town now and were in the
main street, with carts grinding past on the
cobbles, still he went on talking, about settlements,
and teaching, and working men, and helping our
own class, and lectures, till she gathered that he
had got back entire self-confidence, had recovered
from the circus, and was about (and now again
she liked him warmly) to tell her—but here,
the houses falling away on both sides, they came
out on the quay, and the whole bay spread
before them and Mrs. Ramsay could not help
exclaiming, " Oh, how beautiful! " For the great
plateful of blue water was before her; the hoary
Lighthouse, distant, austere, in the midst; and on
the right, as far as the eye could see, fading and
falling, in soft low pleats, the green sand dunes
with the wild flowing grasses on them, which
always seemed to be running away into some
moon country, uninhabited of men*

That was the view, she said, stopping, growing
greyer-eyed> that her husband loved*