TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

paper? No, he wanted nothing. (Here he bowed.)
There was some quality in her which he did not
much like. It was perhaps her masterfulness, her
positiveness, something matter-of-fact in her. She
was so direct.

(A noise drew her attention to the drawing-
room window—the squeak of a hinge. The light
breeze was toying with the window.)

There must have been people who disliked her
very much, Lily thought (Yes; she realised that
the drawing-room step was empty, but it had no
effect on her whatever. She did not want Mrs.
Ramsay now),—People who thought her too sure,
too drastic. Also her beauty offended people
probably. How monotonous, they would say,
and the same alwaysl They preferred another
type—the dark, the vivacious. Then she was
weak with her husband. She let him make those
scenes. Then she was reserved. Nobody knew
exactly what had happened to her. And (to go
back to Mr. Carmichael and his dislike) one
could not imagine Mrs. Ramsay standing paint-
ing, lying reading, a whole morning on the lawn.
It was unthinkable. Without saying a word, the
only token of her errand a basket on her arm,
she went off to the town, to the poor, to sit in
some stuffy little bedroom. Often and often Lily
had seen her go silently in the midst of some
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