To THE LIGHTHOUSEpaper? No, he wanted nothing. (Here he bowed.)There was some quality in her which he did notmuch like. It was perhaps her masterfulness, herpositiveness, something matter-of—fact in her. Shewas so direct.

(A noise drew her attention to the drawingroom window—the squeak of a hinge. The lightbreeze was toying with the window.)

There must have been people who disliked hervery much, Lily thought (Yes; she realised thatthe drawing—room step was empty, but it had noeffect on her whatever. She did not want Mrs.Ramsay now).—People who thought her too sure,too drastic. Also her beauty offended peopleprobably. How monotonous, they would say,and the same always! They preferred anothertype—the dark, the vivacious. Then she wasweak with her husband. She let him make thosescenes. Then she was reserved. Nobody knewexactly what had happened to her. And (to goback to Mr. Carmichael and his dislike) onecould not imagine Mrs. Ramsay standing painting, lying reading, a whole morning on the lawn.It was unthinkable. Without saying a word, theonly token of her errand a basket on her arm,she went off to the town, to the poor, to sit insome stuffy little bedroom. Often and often Lilyhad seen her go silently in the midst of some300