THE WINDOW

He said. It won't rain; and instantly a Heaven of
security opened before her. There was nobody
she reverenced more. She was not good enough
to tie his shoe strings, she felt.

Already ashamed of that petulance, of that
gesticulation of the hands when charging at the
head of his troops, Mr. Ramsay rather sheepishly
prodded his son's bare legs once more, and then,
as if he had her leave for it, with a movement
which oddly reminded his wife of the great sea
lion at the Zoo tumbling backwards after swallow-
ing his fish and walloping off so that the water in
the tank washes from side to side, he dived into
the evening air which, already thinner, was taking
the substance from leaves and hedges but, as if in
return, restoring to roses and pinks a lustre which
they had not had by day.

" Someone had blundered," he said again,
striding off, up and down the terrace.

But how extraordinarily his note had changed!
It was like the cuckoo; " in June he gets out of
tune "; as if he were trying over, tentatively
seeking, some phrase for a new mood, and having
only this at hand, used it, cracked though it was.
But it sounded ridiculous—" Someone had blun-
dered "—said like that, almost as a question,
without any conviction, melodiously. Mrs.
Ramsay could not help smiling, and soon, sure

5$