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TO THE LIGHTHOUSEbeach on a fine night, stirring a puddle, lookingat a stone, asking themselves "What am I,""What is this?" had suddenly an answer vouch-safed them: ("We are in the hands of the Lord")(theycould notsay whatit was)so that they were warm in the frost and hadcomfort in the desert. But Mrs. McNab con-tinued to drink and gossip as before.6The spring without a leaf to toss, bare andbright like a virgin fierce in her chastity, scornfulin her purity, was laid out on fields wide-eyed andwatchful and entirely careless of what was done orthought by the beholders. ([Prue Ramsay, leaningon her father's arm, was given in marriage. Whatpeople said, could have been more fitting? And,they added, how beautiful she looked!)]As summer neared, as the evenings lengthened,there came to the wakeful, the hopeful, walkingthe beach, stirring the pool, imaginations of thestrangest kind—of the flesh turned to atoms whichdrove [∧]beforethe wind, of stars flashing in their hearts,of cliff, sea, cloud, and sky brought purposely to-gether to assemble outwardly the scattered partsof the vision within. In those mirrors, the mindsof men, in those pools of uneasy water, in whichclouds for ever turn and shadows form, dreams204
