TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

he said, holding his foot up for her to look at,
they were first-rate boots. There was only one
man in England who could make boots like that.
Boots are among the chief curses of mankind, he
said. " Bootmakers make it their business," he
exclaimed, " to cripple and torture the human
foot." They are also the most obstinate and
perverse of mankind. It had taken him the best
part of his youth to get boots made as they should
be made. He would have her observe (he lifted
his right foot and then his left) that she had never
seen boots made quite that shape before. They
were made of the finest leather in the world, also.
Most leather was mere brown paper and card-
board. He looked complacently at his foot, still
held in the air. They had reached, she felt, a
sunny island where peace dwelt, sanity reigned
and the sun for ever shone, the blessed island of
good boots. Her heart warmed to him. " Now
let me see if you can tie a knot," he said. He
poohpoohed her feeble system. He showed her
his own invention. Once you tied it, it never
came undone. Three times he knotted her shoe;
three times he unknotted it.

Why, at this completely inappropriate moment,
when he was stooping over her shoe, should she
be so tormented with sympathy .for him that, as
she stooped too, the blood rushed to her face, and,
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