After Miss Holt’s “Do you ever call him _Billy_, by any chance?” and my solemn “Never!” to realize that the man who Miss Robinson vowed “could never have been anything so human as a little boy” does actually possess that characteristically little-boyish pet-name! And I suppose I shall be expected to call him that while I’m here? My goodness! “William” I was prepared for. “William,” with its touch of stiffness—and—stateliness, I might manage. But——Still, if I must, I must. In for a penny, in for a pound. (Only in this case it’s meant being in for five hundred pounds!) And then that he should have that unexpected, that utterly uncharacteristic, that un-Waters-like sort of mother! Welcoming me like that! All I can say is that he—the Governor—_must_ take after his father exactly! And the house! Not in the least like a sarcophagus—or even the corner of the British Museum with Near Oriental fittings, as _I’d_ pictured it! Looking round this bedroom they’ve put me into, I see it’s exactly the sort that I’ve always loved, particularly since my lot has been cast in that poky little egg-box of a Battersea flat, with one skimpy strip of bedroom window giving on a view of grimy-grey back-yard, a kennel made out of a packing-case, and lines of washing hanging out to dry. Here, at The Lawn, my quarters do seem so palatially big and airy! There’s _miles_ of wardrobe space for my new things, I see. And _what_ a lovely long mirror! That delicious scent of lavender and pot-pourri comes from the big china bowl on the window-ledge. There’s a wide bay of casement-windows looking out on to that wonderful lawn, sprays of feathery mauve wistaria tap against the panes outside. Inside, rose-peonies and giant tulips riot over the cream-and-red-and-pink-patterned chintzes of hangings and upholstery. The wallpaper is sprinkled with bouquets of rosebuds caught up with ribbons; and the bed-spread is of glowing rose-colour. No trace anywhere of those “Art-muds” and sad sage-greens that even well-off people get into their rooms so often now. Why can’t they realize that greens, to be successful, must be kept out of doors? Green as an indoor background, _no!_ I’d have chosen just these gay, dainty patterns and colours for my bedroom, if—— But _what’s_ the use of thinking over the house I might have had? I’m not going to. I ought to be breathlessly thankful that this one where I have to spend a fortnight is turning out to be so much more congenial than I’d hoped, and that “his” people are quite unlike “him!”