THE WINDOW

her hand and raised it to his lips and kissed it
with an intensity that brought the tears to her
eyes, and quickly he dropped it.

They turned away from the view and began to
walk up the path where the silver-green spear-like
plants grew, arm in arm. His arm was almost like
a young man's arm, Mrs. Ramsay thought, thin
and hard, and she thought with delight how strong
he still was, though he was over sixty, and how,
untamed and optimistic, and how strange it was
that being convinced, as he was, of all sorts of
horrors, seemed not to depress him, but to cheer
him. Was it not odd, she reflected? Indeed he
seemed to her sometimes made differently from
other people, born blind, deaf, and dumb, to the
ordinary things, but to the extraordinary things,
with an eye like an eagle's. His understanding
often astonished her. But did he notice the
flowers? No. Did he notice the view? No, Did
he even notice his own daughter's beauty, or
whether there was pudding on his plate or roast
beef? He would sit at table with them like a
person in a dream. And his habit of talking aloud,
or saying poetry aloud, was growing on him, she
was afraid; for sometimes it was awkward—

Best and brightest, come away!

poor Miss Giddings, when he shouted that at her,

in