“Oh, have you come? Nancy! You are so welcome, my dear! I called you ‘Miss Trant’ in my note, because I thought it was the right thing when I hadn’t ever seen you. But I needn’t go on being so stiff, need I? Billy said he thought I needn’t.” The Governor had disappeared towards the car again. “Your boxes have gone upstairs, dear, and you might like to rest before it’s time to get ready for dinner. _Blanche_ will take you to your room,” added Mrs. Waters, holding back Theo, whose yellow head and whose long legs seemed just about to precipitate themselves after me—for that child to enjoy another good look, no doubt. “_No_, Cariad, you can’t go either! _Come_, Missis’s little dog”—the long white body was frolicking about just ahead of me. “He _knows_ he never enters the house!” And I knew the pet dogs who are supposed to cherish these rules. Cariad flung himself gleefully in front of the diffident, fair-haired Blanche as she escorted me upstairs. We were on the landing when the sound of a voice that I hadn’t heard before, clear as a bell and distinct as a choir-boy’s solo, rang up to us from below. “No _won_-der, Mother! Mother, I say, no _won_-der! _Is_-n’t she pretty? Billy never _told_ us! He never——.” Here an abrupt full-stop. “Oh, I do hope you won’t mind Theo; she _is_ rather awful sometimes,” murmured Blanche Waters, as apologetically scarlet as if she had done something to offend me. “She will say things—and so _loud_! It’s _only_ because she’s so pleased—and she’s only thirteen really—it’s awful being so tall. People always expect you to be so much more sensible, somehow! This is your room.” She opened a white door. “Outside, Cariad! (He _knows_ he never comes upstairs.) Do let me unpack for you, Nancy.” “Oh! Thank you so much, but——” I felt I must, _must_ be left to myself for the present. At the risk of seeming ungracious, I added hastily, “I can manage, really!” Even though I’m _not_ fated to be a sister-in-law, I should like this nice girl to like me. So I smiled up at her, and she put out a long, rather bony young finger, and just touched my coat-collar. I realized that I needn’t have “fussed” so over my “trousseau.” “Ah! I daresay you’re tired, too.” “I am, rather.” (Strictly speaking, I am ready to drop, though not entirely with fatigue.) “Then I’ll send up some hot water presently, Nancy. (_Come_, Cariad!)” And she left me to what I felt I must have or perish—the solitude of my own room, leisure to gasp over the series of additional shocks I had just received. * * * * * First and foremost, though it seems a funny detail to push itself in front of all the other things, there’s “_Billy!_” To think that Still Waters should be “Billy” to anyone—even if it’s only to his mother!