“Yes; when you were asking me about that place in Wales, Porth Cariad,” he said. “I told you, rather off-handedly, I’m afraid, that there was ‘a wooden woman’ there.” “Oh, yes!” “Well, there is. It’s the figure-head of a ship, some vessel that was wrecked in the bay, years ago,” explained the Governor quite simply. “They’ve put it up beyond the two cottages there, on the cliff. I ought to have explained that at the time.” Well! And wasn’t there anything else he had to explain? With all these “Oh’s” and pauses, he was a long, long time in coming to that unjustifiable kiss—and yet something convinced me that his mind was full of it even while he mentioned these other things first. “Besides that,” he went on deliberately, “there’s something I was thinking over last night, for quite a time before I went to sleep.” Ah! At last! “I wanted to suggest——” he was saying, when, from behind the leafy screen of the pergola there came a booming cry of: “Aha! Here they are! here they are! Might have known what they were at! Love among the roses, eh?” And in another moment there hove into view the rotund, white-waistcoated form and the rosy John Bull face, smiling under the light grey, dented felt hat, of Uncle Albert Waters. Beaming and rubbing his hands, he advanced upon us. “Now, young people, young people! Breakfast’s ready! Didn’t hear the gong, eh? No, of course not. Something better to listen to, as I said. _I_ heard you, Billy! I heard you whistling under her window half an hour ago! Something worth while being an early bird for now, what? But come along.” He slipped one arm into his nephew’s, the other into mine, and wheeled us round towards the house. “I told your mother I’d come out myself and fetch you in!” Perfectly unconscious that if wishes could have killed he must have fallen down shrivelled to a cinder on the garden path, he rolled on happily between us towards the French windows of the dining-room, prattling robustiously all the way. “Nothing comes up to that nine-o’clock-in-the-morning smell of bacon and coffee, does it? Smells far better than it tastes, they say! Which reminds me that I once heard a young lady, Nancy, my dear—only she was a cynical young person, not nearly so pretty—I heard her say that the best part of frizzling bacon was like Love—all in the anticipation! Never tasted as good as it promised to, so to speak! Of course you don’t agree with her?” “No, oh, _no_!” I cried hastily, partly because I felt I must disagree with somebody, partly because I realized that the inevitable effect of this detestable old man upon his nephew was to strike him dumb when he ought to have spoken! “Ah, quite right, quite right!” responded Uncle Albert, with an affectionate pressure of my arm in his. “_That’s_ the attitude! I don’t believe in this modern plan of analysing everything down to nothing, do you?” “_Hate_ it,” I said viciously—meaning that I hated having my arm squeezed by horrible relations-in-law never-to-be.