“_I_ laughed at your being taken in like that by Miss Robinson. Yesterday morning I was almost taken in, by something that was like you: a sharp tap against my bedroom window that might have been a stone thrown up. But it was only a fat, speckly thrush cracking a snail; there are always lots of them crawling out of that southernwood bush by the door. “Mrs. Roberts asks me to tell you,” (What she _said_, in her speciously honeyed Welsh voice and with her irresistible if toothless smile, was, “Tell your _Cariad_——” But I needn’t put that.) “that the ’ooden ’ooman—it took me some time to remember that this was the figure-head on the cliff!—was want paint very bad, and she wonder would you do it when you come. Welsh people, I notice, are fond of ‘wondering’ like this, instead of asking straight out for what they want; yet they generally seem to get it.” (Dear me, this is rather different from the blank sheet I might have enclosed.... Anyhow, it mustn’t get any longer than his, so I’d better stop now.) “I will give this to Theo to post, and” (Goodness, it is difficult to think of how to sign oneself to young men. To Sydney I was always “Yours sincerely.” A stupid ending, means nothing at all.) “With kind regards.” (No.) “Assuring you always of my best attention,” (No. A bit of that at the beginning was enough.) “Will give this to Theo to post, and I am,” (Well! What I _am_, after all!) “Your official _fiancée_, “MONICA TRANT.” Ah! _Now_ there’s something I’d forgotten! “P. S. I will remember what you’ve ordered—” (No, that sounds rather nasty; rather too like Manner B. Cross it out.) —“what you—wish”? No! “What you suggest about my being pleased to see you on Saturday. “N.” As a matter of fact—I shan’t write it, as it might possibly give a wrong impression!—but I really _shall_ be quite pleased to see Billy Waters again. And now to find his young sister, and send her off to the post with what she, in her innocence, imagines to be a return _love_-letter! CHAPTER XXII THE WOODEN WOMAN If a girl were the least bit inclined to fall in love with Billy Waters—and I see now that some girls might be; though not, of course, any girl of my type, capable of this kind of frank friendship that puts anything else out of the question!—well, if she were, she’d find it much easier to complete the process here at Porth Cariad than anywhere else that I can imagine him. Some men—generally the nicest—are so much more _themselves_ in the depths of the country. He is.