TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

acuteness and reality laid up across the bay
among the sandhills.

He was anxious for the sake of this friendship
and perhaps too in order to clear himself in his
own mind from the imputation of having dried
and shrunk—for Ramsay lived in a welter of
children, whereas Bankes was childless and a
widower—he was anxious that Lily Briscoe should
not disparage Ramsay (a great man in his own
way) yet should understand how things stood
between them* Begun long years ago, their
friendship had petered out on a Westmorland
road, where the hen spread her wings before her
chicks; after which Ramsay had married, and
their paths lying different ways, there had been,
certainly for no one's fault, some tendency, when
they met, to repeat.

Yes. That was it* He finished. He turned
from the view. And, turning to walk back the
other way, up the drive, Mr* Bankes was alive to
things which would not have struck him had not
those sandhills revealed to him the body of his
friendship lying with the red on its lips laid up in
peat—for instance, Cam, the little girl, Ramsay's
youngest daughter. She was picking Sweet Alice
on the bank. She was wild and fierce. She would
not " give a flower to the gentleman " as the
nursemaid told her. Nol nol nol she would not!
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