This duty-document of my official fiancé’s I’ve taken out on to the sand-hills; there’s a dip under the crest of one of them where I can curl up in comfort out of the wind, facing the view across the bay, with that pale lilac silhouette of the Carnarvonshire hills across the water.
How funny it seems to unfold a letter bearing the familiar heading of the Near Oriental Shipping Company’s offices! But this one, actually, is not type-written, and signed by a “William Waters, per pro.,” and a scrawled “A. A.” of Mr. Alexander’s.
William Waters has written in his own hand; not a particularly good one, either. Several sheets of it? Was it such an unusually slack day at the office, then?
“July —, 1913.
“My dear Nancy,
“I was glad to hear from my mother”
(I don’t see why he should underline the three last words; I shouldn’t be likely to write first.)
“that you’d arrived safely and were comfortably settled into the cottages. I wonder what you think of Porth Cariad. I do hope you won’t be bored to extinction in such a quiet spot; but you were warned, weren’t you, not to expect esplanades and pier-concerts and shops and things? Do you think you can manage to make yourself at all happy without them?
“How do you like the bathing in that little bay next to the cottages? Can you swim? If not, you will have to learn. I will teach you.