TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

was roused as usual by something incongruous,
There was a brown spot in the middle of the
bay. It was a boat. Yes, she realised that after
a second. But whose boat? Mr. Ramsay's boat,
she replied. Mr. Ramsay; the man who had
marched past her, with his hand raised, aloof, at
the head of a procession, in his beautiful boots,
asking her for sympathy, which she had refused,
The boat was now half way across the bay.

So fine was the morning except for a streak of

wind here and there that the sea and sky looked

all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the

sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.

A steamer far out at sea had drawn in the air a

great scroll of smoke which stayed there curving

and circling decoratively, as if the air were a fine

gauze which held things and kept them softly in

its mesh, only gently swaying them this way and

that. And as happens sometimes when the

weather is very fine, the cliffs looked as if they

were conscious of the ships, and the ships looked

as if they were conscious of the cliffs, as if they

signalled to each other some secret message of

their own. For sometimes quite close to the

shore, the Lighthouse looked this morning in

the haze an enormous distance away.

" Where are they now? " Lily thought,
looking out to sea. Where was he, that very old
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