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Title: The Motor Maids in Fair Japan

Author: Katherine Stokes

Release Date: September 13, 2004 [EBook #13450]

Language: English

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                     THE MOTOR MAIDS IN FAIR JAPAN

                          BY KATHERINE STOKES

AUTHOR OF "THE MOTOR MAIDS' SCHOOL DAYS," "THE MOTOR MAIDS BY PALM AND
PINE," "THE MOTOR MAIDS ACROSS THE CONTINENT," "THE MOTOR MAIDS BY ROSE,
SHAMROCK AND THISTLE" ETC.

                                 1913




CONTENTS

CHAPTER

    I. OFF FOR JAPAN

   II. TEA IN THE GARDEN

  III. SHOPPING IN JINRIKSHAS

   IV. THE GARDEN IN THE RAIN

    V. IN THE LIBRARY

   VI. CHERRY BLOSSOMS

  VII. A BAD QUARTER OF AN HOUR

 VIII. THE COMPASSIONATE GOD, JIZU

   IX. A BIRTHDAY PARTY

    X. IN THE DARK

   XI. THE COMET DISGUISED

  XII. A THEATER PARTY

 XIII. A FALLING OUT

  XIV. A LETTER THAT CAME, THOUGH IT WAS NEVER SENT

   XV. THE ANCIENT CITY OF SLEEP

  XVI. THE STORM KING

 XVII. A VISIT OF CEREMONY

XVIII. THE MAGNET AND THE SILVER CHURN

  XIX. FATHER AND DAUGHTER

   XX. THE TYPHOON

  XXI. CONUNDRUMS AND ANSWERS

 XXII. GOOD BYE, SUMMER




CHAPTER I.

OFF FOR JAPAN.


"The Motor Maids are off again," announced the West Haven Courier one
morning, as if every citizen in the gray old town on the coast was not
already well aware of it.

The four famous travelers and their chaperone, Miss Helen Campbell, were
always off somewhere in the red motor car. If they were not making a
voyage to England with the "Comet" stored in the hold of the ship for
immediate use on arrival, or taking perilous journeys across the American
continent in the faithful car, they were making excursions to Shell
Island or Seven League Island, or down the coast to the Sailors' Inn.

"Where is it to be this time, Nancy-Bell?" Captain Brown had asked his
daughter when she had broken the news to him that she must give up the
spring term at High School for something far more educational than mere
books. Perhaps the sea captain had intended to be stern when he asked
that question; but Nancy had her own peculiar methods of dispelling
sternness. A beaming anticipatory smile irradiated her face and
scattered parental disapproval even as the warm rays of the sun scatter
the morning mists.

"Japan!" she announced solemnly; and Captain Brown, who himself had made
voyages to Japan in his youth, pricked up his ears like an old hunting
dog when he hears the call of the pack. The name of High School faded
from his memory. It was the high seas he was thinking of--the great
desert of waters, the fresh salt breeze and the foam track left by the
little ship as it cut through the waves.

Without a word, he opened an old sea chest and drew out an atlas and
chart. Nancy blinked her eyes and smiled happily. She wondered if the
other girls were having as easy a time in breaking the amazing news to
their parents. Would Elinor Butler's father and mother consent to her
taking this long journey? Would Mrs. Price be willing to part with Mary
for many, many months while that young person journeyed to the other side
of the world? Captain Brown settled himself on a settee in front of the
crackling driftwood fire and Nancy seated herself beside him.

"You see, it's this way, father," she began, while Captain Brown turned
the leaves of the atlas with reverent fingers. "Billie Campbell's
father is a great engineer--"

"I've known him since he was a boy, child," interrupted the Captain.

"He's been invited by the Japanese government to go to Japan on some
consulting work, and he says he can't live without Billie another summer,
and Billie says she can't exist without us; so Mr. Campbell is to take a
house in Tokyo and we are all to go. Mr. Ignatius Donahue is going to
take us across to San Francisco in his private car. He says it's a very
small return for something we did for him once, and the end of the story
is that we are to sail for Japan in two weeks. Isn't that delightful,
Captain Brown?" she added, giving her father a tight hug and kissing him
on the end of his nose. "And aren't you overjoyed for your little
daughter to have such an opportunity to see the other side of the world?"

The Captain returned the kiss with good measure and resumed his study of
the maps and charts.

"You'll be a member of the Royal Geographical Society next," he observed.

"It's all happened because Billie Campbell has a mole on the sole of her
left foot and a Gypsy once told her that was the mark of the wanderer."

"But you and Elinor and Mary haven't any moles on the soles of your feet,
have you?"

"No, and neither has Miss Campbell."

"It's just as well," commented the Captain. "One is enough in the party
if it's going to take my little daughter away from her home most of the
time."

"Not most of the time, father," protested Nancy. "Only to Palm Beach and
across the Continent and to England--"

At this dangerous turn in the conversation, the
door was pushed open and Billie Campbell rushed
in, followed by Elinor Butler and Mary Price.

"It's all settled, Nancy-Bell," she cried. "Cousin Helen has consented
and the girls can go. Everything depends on you, now--"

"We are just studying the map," answered Nancy quickly, with a demure
smile.

Immediately the other girls seated themselves in a circle about the sea
captain and his charts, and Mrs. Brown, whose consent had already been
gained, presently appeared with a large platter of cookies.

So it was that the Motor Maids and Miss Campbell sailed through the
Golden Gate of San Francisco harbor one morning en route for the island
empire of Japan. On the long and sometimes tedious voyage we will not
dwell; nor shall we pause until we have left them on the piazza of their
new home in Tokyo, while seven Japanese servants are making profound
obeisances at the entrance and their attendant families, including three
grandmothers and five funny little children, bob and bow in the rear of
this formidable company.

Billie, who had scarcely left her father's side since the joyful moment
of their reunion, hung on his arm and smiled up into his face
inquiringly; while Miss Helen Campbell, his cousin, exclaimed:

"Dear me, Duncan; I thought we were to stay at a private house--not a
hotel."

Mr. Campbell, from his mysterious dwelling places in far distant lands,
had made so many things possible for the Motor Maids that Billie's three
friends had come to regard him as a kind of powerful spirit who had only
to will things to happen and they happened. At first they were rather shy
of the real Mr. Campbell, big and strong and splendid, the very image of
his daughter, Billie, if she had grown half a foot and cropped her light
brown hair closely all over her head.

"But, Cousin Helen, this is a private house," answered this human
presentment of the good spirit, a subdued humor lighting his gray eyes,
exactly as they had seen Billie's eyes kindle hundreds of times. "This is
your very own villa and this is your staff of domestics," he added,
indicating the regiment of servants who again bowed low like the chorus
in a comic opera. "You are to regard yourself as queen of this little
realm," he went on, pointing to the charming grounds and garden
surrounding the house, "and you are to be in absolute command. Nellie and
Nannie and Mollie and Billie are to be your maids of honor and I'll be
general factotum and protector. As for the staff," he continued in a
whisper, "their combined wages for one month amount to about one good
servant's hire at home."

The maid in the front of the cohort now stepped forth. She was much older
than the others; her hair was short and her blue cotton robe seemed
severe and plain in comparison to the gay colored kimonos of the younger
maids.

"This is our housekeeper and cook, O'Haru San," announced Mr. Campbell.
"I shall leave you in her charge now and keep an appointment."

So saying, Mr. Duncan Campbell kissed his daughter, smiled delightfully
on the company in general and hastened down the walk to the road, for the
villa was in the suburbs of Tokyo.

"Will honorable ladies enter humble, small house," said O'Haru making an
obeisance.

But before they could move an inch, the maids were at their feet deftly
unfastening their shoes.

"What in the world are they doing?" demanded Miss Campbell.

"One never wears shoes in the house, Cousin, don't you remember? Papa
told us so this morning," answered Billie slipping her feet into the
straw sandals provided.

"Perfect nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Campbell, shuffling into the hall in
her loose footgear. "I suppose I shall be expected to sit on the floor
and eat my meals on a door mat," she complained, "and that I positively
will not do. My old joints are far too stiff to be doubled up like a pair
of nut crackers."

The girls giggled and the four little Japanese maids giggled, too; not
that they understood a word of the language, but good humor is the
keynote of the Japanese character and strangers are treated with a
sympathetic courtesy and hospitality unequaled in any other country.

However, Miss Campbell's fears were immediately set at rest, for the
long, low-ceiled drawing-room of the villa was furnished in European
fashion with plenty of comfortable arm-chairs and sofas made of bamboo.
The floors were covered with thick soft mats and the front walls facing
the piazza were really sliding panels covered with opaque paper through
which the light cast a soft mellow luster. As a matter of fact, Dr. and
Mrs. Spears, the owners of the villa, had kept it as Japanese as possible
without interfering with their foreign ideas of comfort. The only
ornaments were several beautiful scrolls and screens and a few vases.

Instead of sitting down quietly and being served to tea, which was
evidently the next duty expected of them by these formal domestics,
Billie and her friends rushed from one room to another in a state of
eager curiosity. They poked their inquisitive little noses into the
charming bedrooms and even peeped into the mysterious kitchen quarters
where O'Haru reigned supreme,

"It's Japanese enough to be pretty and American enough to be
comfortable," observed Nancy, arranging her curls at one of the bedroom
mirrors.

"I don't know why you call it 'American,'" objected Billie. "I think you
should say 'international,' since beds may be imported from Turkey,
Russia, Prussia, England, or France, to say nothing of Germany and
Italy."

"Well, no matter what nationality it is, I'm glad I'm going to sleep on a
bed instead of on the floor as Japanese girls do, with a little bench for
a pillow to keep from rumpling my hair."

Just then a Japanese girl appeared in the doorway. She was quite young,
perhaps seventeen, perhaps older, and enchantingly pretty.

"Her eyes are like stewed prunes," wrote Nancy to her mother that night,
"rich and black and luscious. Her hair is as black as father's ebony box
and quite as shiny; her skin smooth and creamy. She has a little rosebud
mouth and a small straight nose and she wore the most beautiful kimono,
all blue with a cerise sash or _obi_, as it is called. Her name is
'Onoye' and she's the daughter of the cook, O'Haru. She is just one of
the maids in the house, I suppose, but she seems better class and she
speaks a little English. Her mother adores her and I suppose Onoye is
being spoiled Japanese fashion, which is very different from American
fashion. Japanese girls are the most unselfish, uncomplaining,
considerate, everything-that-I'm-not little souls I ever saw."

Nancy's description of O'Haru's daughter was not exaggerated in the
least. Little Onoye, pausing timidly at the entrance to their bedroom,
was a vision to charm the eye. She blushed, smiled deprecatingly and hung
her head.

"Will honorable ladies be pleased to employ humble refreshment?" she
announced in a funny high voice with a prim, precise accent.

The girls would have laughed if it had not been impolite. All their
impulsive actions must be checked in this land of perfect manners, or
they would certainly appear rude and rough.

"We should be most pleased and happy, I am sure," answered Billie,
feeling that she must not be outdone in lofty expression, "But what
excellent English you speak. Do you live here, too?"

Onoye looked up and her face brightened.

"I make studying of American language one time," she said.

"And are we to have tea now?" asked Nancy as the Japanese girl backed out
of the room.

"If pleasingly to gracious ladies," she answered.

With bobs and bows, she led the way to a summer house in the garden where
the others were already installed in comfortable chairs.

"These are certainly the most hospitable servants I ever saw," Miss
Campbell was saying to Mary and Elinor. "They make one feel like a guest
in one's own house. I am sure if I lived here long, I should learn to
meet myself at the front door and invite myself to take refreshments in
the garden."

The girls smiled lazily. They seemed somehow to have entered into a land
of unrealities and dream pictures. The bamboo and rice paper villa was a
doll's house, the lovely garden, a stage setting and the picturesque band
of Japanese servants gliding noiselessly about, the chorus.

And while they talked and sipped their tea, a fat, decrepit pug dog came
slowly toward them down the walk on spindle legs. As the aged creature
approached, O'Haru paused and made it a profound bow. The girls choked
and sputtered in their tea and Miss Campbell laughed outright. They
learned afterwards that this venerable animal was "Nedda," the Spears'
pet pug, eighteen years old, and that every servant attached to the
household regarded her with great respect because they believed that she
was really Mr. Spears' grandmother.

Old Nedda was very pleased to meet with a little human company of her own
social status. She wagged her twisted tail cordially and when she heard
American voices speaking the language of her youth, she gave a little
expressive whine of pleasure.

"You poor old lonesome thing," exclaimed the compassionate Billie.

Just then a maid hurried up with a cushion. She had evidently been
detailed to look after Nedda in the absence of the mistress of the house;
to feed and bathe her; to see that she was covered up at night; to guard
against her sleeping in damp places. Nedda stepped gingerly on the mat,
moved round and round in a circle several times, even as the most
primitive dog might do, and settled herself in a round heap for her late
afternoon siesta. Then O'Sudzu, the little maid, spread a wadded silk
cover over the pampered old Nedda and departed, bowing again.

They were still laughing over this absurd incident when Mr. Campbell
appeared on the walk with two companions. One was a good looking young
man about twenty-one and the other a Japanese in European clothes, and
very handsome, the girls thought him, in spite of his Oriental features
and dark complexion.




CHAPTER II.

TEA IN THE GARDEN.


Nancy Brown instinctively put her hand to her curls when she saw the
three approach. Elinor patted her coronet braids. Mary blushed and
shrank timidly into the depths of her chair, for she was very shy; and
Billie, whose candid nature had no coquetry, looked calmly interested and
remarked:

"Dear old Papa, there he is with two visitors."

"I'm not at all surprised," said Miss Campbell smiling, "your Papa is one
of the most general inviters I ever knew. He always loved to entertain."

"How do my five beautiful American ladies feel?" called her jovial
relation as he entered the summer house. "Rested with humble refreshment
in poor modest little house?"

"Yes, indeed, honorable father," answered Billie laughing.

"I want you to meet my two friends, Nicholas Grimm and Yoritomo Ito,"
went on Mr. Campbell.

Nicholas Grimm was apparently a young Dutchman. His figure was well set
up and stocky, his features regular, his mouth firm with a good square
chin, and his clear dark eyes under bushy brows gazed on the world with a
frank, good-humored expression.

Yoritomo Ito was the best type of Japanese, lithe and straight, rather
tall, with shrewd brown eyes and a smile that always hovered about his
shapely mouth. He was immaculately neat and his skin looked as if it
might have been scrubbed and then polished. Not a speck of dust marred
his spotless linen or his dark blue suit.

"Mr. Ito, will you sit on a mat on the floor or in a chair?" asked Miss
Campbell when the introductions were over.

"Oh, he can be Japanese or American, whichever suits him," interrupted
Mr. Campbell, "though I'll wager you didn't do much floor sitting when
you went to Harvard, did you, Yoritomo?"

The Japanese's smile broadened somewhat when he answered with a slight
accent:

"American floors are not intended to be used as chairs."

"Meaning, Mr. Ito, that the American floors are not as entirely free from
dust as the Japanese floors?" inquired Miss Campbell.

"Oh, no, Madam," protested the Japanese, horrified at this implication of
rudeness but unable to dispel the impression nevertheless.

"I grant you that our houses are not as clean as yours," went on Miss
Campbell, "but you see we haven't time to remove our shoes whenever we
enter the house, and then we have so much furniture and so many hangings
to catch the dust. I don't see how you Japanese can resist the collecting
habit in a country where there are so many beautiful things to collect."

"My dear Cousin, they are as great collectors as anybody, only they keep
their valuables stored in a fire-proof house--what is it you call it,
Yoritomo?" asked Mr. Campbell.

"It is called in English language a 'go-down.'"

"So it is, a 'go-down.' It always reminds me of a steep grade down the
side of a mountain. Here they keep all their best clothes and vases and
ornaments and only bring out one vase and one scroll at a time. When they
grow tired of those things, they are stored and something else is brought
out, so that there is perpetual variety in the Japanese home."

"I should hate to have my best clothes locked in a fire-proof house,"
announced Nancy. "Suppose one wanted to make a quick change and the
key was mislaid."

"Ah, Miss Nancy," laughed Mr. Campbell, "it is not difficult to see where
your heart lies."

Yoritomo looked at Nancy with polite though evident interest which
gradually developed into a cautiously veiled admiration. He was about
to speak, when he was interrupted by the troop of little maids headed by
Onoye with tea and refreshments. It was Onoye who served the young
Japanese. First she bowed before him until her forehead almost touched
the ground. Then she placed a mat for him to sit upon and a low lacquer
tray containing tea and rice cakes. But Yoritomo, ignoring these humble
services, sat himself in a chair next to Nancy and little Onoye hastened
to rectify her mistake.

In the meantime, Nicholas Grimm was talking to Billie and Elinor.

"Are you from Holland?" they asked him.

"Several hundreds of years ago I was. Kinterhook, New York, has been my
home for the last generation."

"Good," exclaimed Billie, "I thought you were a Dutchman and it's lots
nicer to be an American, don't you think so?"

"I wouldn't care to change," answered Nicholas solemnly. "America's good
enough for me."

"Are you one of the engineers on the new railroad they are building?"
asked Billie.

"I'm going to lay a few ties," he answered.

"Are you going to build those little funny openwork bridges over all the
streams?" demanded Elinor.

"Something like it. Everything is picturesque in this country from
beggars to railroad bridges, and, speaking of bridges, have you explored
the garden yet? There's a ripping little bridge down there. When Mrs.
Spears gave garden parties that was one of the strolling places."

"Why, we didn't know we had such a pretentious garden!" exclaimed Billie.
"Papa wrote that he had sublet a suburban villa near Tokyo with an acre
or so of ground around it."

"An acre or so?" repeated Nicholas. "That's an estate to them. They can
put as much into an acre without crowding it as other people put into
ten. Perhaps you would like to explore the garden if you have had enough
honorable refreshment?"

"Oh, yes," they answered eagerly, and drawing shy little Mary from the
depths of her chair, Billie followed Elinor and the new friend down the
garden path.

"Would you be interested in seeing the garden?" asked Yoritomo of Nancy.

"I might be induced," she answered drooping her long eyelashes, to the
great amusement of Mr. Campbell, and they also wandered off, leaving the
two older people for a cousinly chat.

The girls were amazed at the beauty of the garden back of the house.
Against the high wall surrounding the small estate clustered masses of
flowers. Everywhere were little winding paths and an occasional grove of
stunted pines that gave the impression of great age. It was in exquisite
order, the green turf clipped to the smoothness of a velvet carpet. In
all the garden there was not a leaf nor twig out of place. Back of the
house the land sloped slightly and at the foot of this gentle depression
trickled a musical little stream. Here was a stone lantern five feet
high, also the miniature curved bridge; and to make the picture complete
in every Japanese detail, leaning pensively on the railing of the bridge,
stood Onoye. She herself might have been a bright colored flower in her
gay kimono and sash.

Only Mary noticed that the little Japanese was weeping softly. When she
saw the Americans coming, she hastily withdrew down one of the paths and
in another moment had disappeared entirely.

"Poor little thing," thought Mary, "perhaps her mother has been scolding
her."

Perhaps she had, indeed, for O'Haru, the housekeeper, presently appeared
looking for her daughter. Shading her eyes with one hand, she scanned the
vistas of the garden.

Mary left the group of friends and hastened down the path.

"Are you looking for Onoye?" she asked the old woman.

"Yes, honorable lady," answered O'Haru, trying to replace her uneasy and
troubled expression with a pleasant smile.

"She was on the bridge a moment ago. Is she unhappy? I think she was
crying."

"Have greatly kindness to forgive humble Japanese girl," answered O'Haru
in a low voice.

Mary thought the housekeeper was going to say more and no doubt, if she
had poured out her confidences at that time, many later misunderstandings
might have been averted. As it was, they were interrupted by Nancy and
her Japanese cavalier who turned the curve of the path and came full upon
them quite suddenly.

Instead of hastening away as quietly as possible, O'Haru immediately fell
on her knees and began speaking in a low voice in her own language.

There was nothing unusual in this. All the servants seemed to be in a
continual state of "nervous prostration," as Billie expressed it, and
Nancy, smiling and dimpling, followed Yoritomo down the path without
thinking any more about O'Haru.

"What was she saying, Mr. Ito?" she asked.

"You might accuse me of being a flatterer if I told you," he answered.

"But I don't understand."

"I mean she was speaking of you. 'The honorable young American lady,'"
she said, "'is very beautiful.'"

Nancy was flattered, as who would not have been over this frank
compliment. A rosy flush spread over her face and the dimple deepened
in her cheek.

"You see, you are an unusual type in this country, Miss Brown," continued
the Japanese. "You must expect to arouse comment wherever you go. Hair
with so much color to it, like polished copper and curling, too, causes
much admiration. You are very different from the Japanese."

Again Nancy felt flattered.

"I really believe I am rather pretty," she
thought. What she said was: "You are very
kind, Mr. Ito, but I am sure I think the Japanese
girls are just as pretty as American girls. Little
Onoye, our maid, is charming. She is a perfect
picture."

For the rest of the day, however, vain Nancy was enveloped in a rosy
cloud of self-satisfaction. It was pleasing to be admired and still more
pleasing to feel that the admiration was justified.

The truth is, that admiration was quite as stimulating to Nancy as it is
to the rest of us, and when she realized that the young Japanese had
fallen an instant victim to her charms, she felt some pardonable pride in
the power of her blue eyes and bright curls.

By this time the others had returned to the pagoda-like summer house.

"Come, Nancy, dear," floated Miss Campbell's voice across the garden. She
was too careful a chaperone to permit one of her girls to wander
at dusk with a strange young Japanese.

Nancy quickened her pace. Nevertheless, she felt a little impatient with
all these restrictions.

"I am almost eighteen. I suppose I might be trusted to look after myself
occasionally," she thought with some irritation.

"May I not see you again to-morrow, Miss Brown?" Yoritomo was asking.

"I am afraid you'll have to ask Miss Campbell."

"It is now almost the American dinner hour," he went on thoughtfully,
looking at his watch. "If I should be strolling to-morrow at this time
down by the bridge, it would be very pleasant. We could have a few words
together."

"But--" began Nancy, and the voices of her friends interrupted her.

They had paused near a great bush of azaleas in full bloom. Almost over
their heads the silver crescent of the new moon hung poised like a fairy
scimitar. It was exquisite and unreal. Nancy felt somehow out of place in
the lovely picture, while the young Japanese, standing intense and rigid
beside her, was as much a part of the Oriental garden as the stone
lantern and the fragrant spice bush near the path. Even his blue serge
European suit seemed to have lost its values in the deepening shadows.

"If I come every day to see you, there would be great comment," he said
in a low voice. "But often I shall wait on the bridge about this time."

It was only a little time ago that Nancy's mother had lengthened her
little daughter's skirts from shoe tops to ankles. The line of the old
hem was still noticeable in some of her summer frocks. Just six months
since, Nancy had tucked up the bunch of curls into a Psyche knot and
transformed the ribbon bow into a velvet bandeau. Since she had been old
enough to go to parties she had had boy admirers who had said sweet
things to her. But this was quite different, and Nancy, almost eighteen,
and capable of looking after herself, felt suddenly frightened.

"I--I must hurry," she said, and turning she ran as fast as she could up
the garden path nearly colliding with Billie and Mary who had come to
look for her.

"Why, Nancy, you are chasing along like a scared rabbit," cried Billie.
"Has anything happened to you?"

"Oh, no. I thought we had better run because it was so late," she
answered breathlessly, while Yoritomo, following close behind, calm and
collected, bade them a formal good night and hurried over to the summer
house to pay his respects to Miss Campbell and her cousin.

Nancy decided that night not to tell Billie, her intimate confidante,
what the Japanese had said to her. The walls were too thin, she thought.
Besides, she was curious to know if Yoritomo would be on the bridge the
next afternoon. Just how she intended to find this out, she had not
then decided.




CHAPTER III.

SHOPPING IN JINRIKSHAS.


"I feel very much like a baby in a baby carriage," observed Miss Helen
Campbell as Mr. Campbell almost lifted her into the graceful little
two-wheeled vehicle. "And is that poor soul going to turn into a horse
and pull me?" she demanded.

"You aren't such a heavy load," replied her cousin. "I doubt if the S. P.
C. A. would get excited over it. I am only sorry you have to be alone,
but I suppose those four inseparables are paired off as usual. Billie
with Nancy and Mary with Elinor."

"Indeed, I much prefer to be alone," said Miss Campbell. "Then I can hold
on with both hands in case I am upset backwards."

"You never will be. They will treat you like spun glass. You will take
good care of the ladies, Komatsu," he said to the 'riksha man who,
leaning against the garden wall, resembled a bronze figure, brown and
muscular.

"Gracious lady of fearing not need," answered Komatsu with an
ingratiating smile as he stepped between the shafts of the 'riksha.

"It is impossible to tell how much English they know and how much they
don't know," Mr. Campbell confided to his relative in a low voice. "They
never ask twice and they always make some kind of an out at a reply. But
I think, until I can go with you, it is safer for you to go in the
'rikshas. The common people here aren't used to motor cars and there are
still some fanatics in Japan, you know, who are opposed to every sort of
progress and the invasion of foreign customs."

"Good-by, Papa," called Billie, "I do wish you were not a working man so
that you could go with us."

"I am sorry I must be a laborer in the vineyards, Miss Wilhelmina," he
answered, "but it's only that you may ride in a fine carriage and wear a
silk robe."

"Silk robe?" repeated Miss Campbell. "That's just what I want. Komatsu,
we wish to go to a silk shop," she ordered the man-servant, speaking
very loud and distinctly as if she were addressing a deaf person.

Komatsu grinned amiably.

"I bring honorable lady to fine shop with quickness."

The next moment the three vehicles were flying along the road drawn by
three tireless individuals, whose good nature, like the widow's cruse,
knew no diminishing.

It would be difficult to find in all the world a more beautiful city than
Tokyo at this season of the year. It is really a city of gardens and
everywhere are palms and pines and waving willow trees, magnificent
arbors of wisteria not yet in bloom and splendid azalea bushes bursting
into masses of white and pink blossoms. Even the humblest brown cottage
has its bit of garden, for the love of flowers is innate in every
Japanese nature: it is a national trait.

"There is no prospect that isn't graceful and picturesque," thought Mary
watching an old fruit and vegetable man in front of them. He wore a dull
blue cotton tunic much faded but still a heavenly color, and on either
end of a pole resting on his shoulders was a flat brown basket filled
with small oranges and vegetables of an unknown variety. Behind him
walked an old woman in a dull brown and purple dress with an orange sash
around her waist. Her back was burdened with a great bundle of bark. The
sun was hot and many of the wayfarers carried paper umbrellas. Most of
the women had babies swung on their backs and sometimes shiny little
black eyes peeped out from the front of a kimono, the mother's arms being
engaged in supporting another burden on her back.

"It seems to me the women work very hard in this country," remarked
Elinor severely, pointing to a cart filled with charcoal propelled by two
women and a man. One of the women had a baby on her back and another
child holding to her skirts.

"They do," said Mary. "Even the women in the upper classes have to work
hard. Don't you remember what the missionary on the steamer told us? The
wife is always the first one up in the household no matter how many
servants she has. She has to bring her mean old mother-in-law a cup of
tea and get out her husband's clothes. The mother-in-law has had to work
so hard when she was a daughter-in-law that she takes it out on her son's
wife later."

"I'd like to see an American wife ridden by her mother-in-law that way,"
broke in Elinor indignantly.

"But then the Japanese daughter-in-law's turn comes later," said Mary
laughing, "when she gets to be a mother-in-law. So it's all nicely
balanced."

But the streets were too interesting to pursue the subject of
mother-in-law any further. They were passing a row of open-fronted shops
on the edges of which customers were squatted looking at materials while
the proprietor bobbed and smiled and dickered over his bargains. Red and
yellow banners hung in a row from the roof of the shop, the gay colored
hieroglyphics on them indicating what manner of goods were displayed
within.

"Here's a nice little silk shop, Komatsu. Let us stop here," called Miss
Campbell.

But Komatsu only grinned over his shoulder and called:

"Too littleness for gracious big lady."

"But I like the looks of this place, Komatsu," said the gracious big lady
helplessly.

However Komatsu had his own ideas of obedience and he trotted on, never
pausing until he reached a large silk store thronged with clerks and
customers.

Here all the 'rikshas drew up and the girls alighted with Miss Campbell,
who was a little red in the face but determined to overlook the
annoyance of orders disregarded.

The front of the store was screened from the street by dark blue cotton
curtains behind which was a roofed platform carpeted with matting. Here
sat a group of clerks, each with his _soroban_ or adding machine at his
side. Little Japanese boys, their shoulders loaded with bales of rich
materials, staggered about, and through the open doors of the fire-proof
warehouse they caught glimpses of costly stuffs stored away. An
obsequious clerk who spoke excellent English came forward and presently,
when their eyes became accustomed to the busy, brilliantly colored scene,
they began to examine silk materials on their own account. Miss Campbell
made each of her charges a present of _crêpe de chine_ and still was not
very much out of pocket. As they were about to leave, they were followed
by a chorus of shouts.

"What in the world is the matter?" demanded Miss Campbell uneasily. "Has
the place caught fire, or didn't we give the right amount of change?"

"No, madam," answered the polite English-speaking clerk, who had
accompanied her to the sidewalk. "They are saying farewell. In English
it would mean, 'Thanks for your continued favors.'"

"Don't mention it," said Miss Campbell. "We'll come again."

The clerk smiled and bowed formally and once more they whirled away in
their 'rikshas. They visited many shops in Tokyo that morning. It was
like a fascinating bazaar and it seemed impossible to tear themselves
away, although Komatsu kept always close to their elbows and several
times observed:

"Muchly more time. Come again."

At last, just as an ominous mass of black clouds had spread itself over
the heavens, against which the brilliant colors of the signs and the
people's clothes stood out in bold relief, they started for home. But on
the outskirts of the city great drops of rain pelted them in the face,
the advance scouts of a tremendous downpour.

"Oh, Komatsu, we will ruin our clothes," cried Miss Campbell in alarm.
"You must take us somewhere until the rain is over."

They were passing the high walls of a garden, the gate of which stood
open. Without an instant's hesitation Komatsu turned in and the three
'rikshas raced up a broad walk toward a Japanese house at the end.
Several smiling hospitable persons whom they took to be servants ran out
with large umbrellas made of oiled paper and protected the five ladies,
who hurried unceremoniously into the house just as the heavens opened and
the rain came down in bucketfuls.

Three Japanese ladies, seated on the floor drinking tea, rose quickly and
made low formal bows. The five refugees from the storm returned the bows
with some bewilderment.

"I do hope you will pardon this intrusion," Miss Campbell found herself
saying. "The storm was so sudden and terrible, we fled to the nearest
house."

One of the little Japanese ladies bowed. She was evidently the mistress
of the house, but she spoke no English.

Miss Campbell pointed outside to the rain and made expressive signs
indicative of haste. It was really like being in a deaf and dumb asylum.
Then the little lady smiled again and bowed again, and the others bowed.

"Good heavens, Billie, what am I to do? Must I continue to smile and bob
and bow forever? Do come to my rescue!"

But the hospitable hostess now hurried from the room and presently
reappeared followed by her maids, each of whom carried a little lacquered
table. It was indicated that the American guests would confer a favor if
they would seat themselves.

"I've never sat on the floor in my life," complained Miss Campbell in a
low voice. "It will kill me. I am certain it will displace a ligament."

"You'll just have to, Cousin. Try sitting on your feet. That's the way
they do."

"I think tailor-fashion would be easier," answered the poor lady. "Don't
help me. They might take it for rudeness. Everything is bad manners in
this country."

Crossing her feet, she slid slowly to the floor. The visitors were
promptly served with delicious tea, rice cakes, candied fruits and other
confections molded and colored like the flowers in season.

Certainly that was one of the most silent and ceremonious tea parties
ever given. It was all dumb show, but the manners of the three Japanese
ladies were exquisite. While this excruciatingly polite scene transpired,
there raged such a storm of wind and rain that at each moment they feared
the fragile bamboo and rice paper abode would be blown from its slight
foundations.

"They won't lose much if it's blown away," thought Billie. "There's not a
stick of furniture to be seen except a screen."

In one corner of the room was a splendid vase almost as tall as she was,
and on the wall hung a scroll showing two women gathering cherry
blossoms. On the floor were soft mats fitted closely together.

Suddenly Billie blushed scarlet.

"Oh, Cousin Helen," she exclaimed. "We forgot to take off our shoes."

"Don't speak to me," answered her relation. "My legs have gone to sleep
and I have lost the power to move them. I am in an agony of pain."

At this moment a figure darkened the doorway. The three Japanese women
rose and bowed low and the servants made obeisances. The five Americans
were amazed to recognize their friend of yesterday, Yoritomo Ito. He was
quite as amazed as they were, although he did not show it except by the
flick of an eyelash, because no well-bred Japanese ever shows surprise.

"How do you do, Mr. Ito?" cried Miss Campbell. "Is it possible that this
is your house we have broken into so rudely?"

It was indeed Mr. Ito's home, and, the three ladies were his mother, his
aunt and his sister.

"It is a great pleasure, I am sure, that you have found refuge in my
home. I trust they have served you well."

Then he spoke rapidly in Japanese to his mother, who smiled and clasped
her hands with joy, as if heaven could not have bestowed a greater gift
than the privilege to entertain these delightful foreigners.

"And are you the head of the family, Mr. Ito?" asked Miss Campbell.

"No, my father takes first place. He is a tea merchant in Tokyo. I have
also a younger brother who works with him. He did not wish to go to
America with me."

At this moment a human doll baby toddled into the room. His round little
head was bald except for a thick mat of hair on top. His beady black eyes
gleamed like polished glass. He wore a dark red kimono and his feet and
legs were bare.

"Oh, the darling," cried Mary whose love of children overcame any shyness
she might feel before strangers. The three Japanese were pleased at the
attention the little person created. The girls gathered around him in a
circle while he stood perfectly still regarding them curiously, as if
they were some new strange birds which had dropped into his room from the
skies.

Yoritomo also was pleased. He took the little fellow's hand in his and
led him from one to another while his relatives stood in a beaming row.

Children are called "treasure-flowers" in Japan, and are petted and
spoiled quite as much as American children.

"What a cunning little baby brother, Mr. Ito," said Nancy. "What is his
name?"

"Kenkyo," answered Yoritomo. Suddenly he turned and spoke to one of the
women and the "treasure-flower" was led from the room.

"Oh, don't send him away," objected Miss Campbell. "I haven't had half a
chance to see him yet."

"He is not dressed to see distinguished visitors," answered Yoritomo,
quickly. "My mother would like to show you some of her embroidery if
you would care to see it."

So the subject of little Kenkyo was dropped and Madame Ito, hurrying
away, returned in a moment with an armful of linen and silk on which she
had worked the most wonderful floral designs.

In the meantime, the faithful 'riksha man, Komatsu, had trotted all the
way through floods of rain to the Campbell villa half a mile distant, and
now returned in company with O'Haru. Between them they carried a covered
basket containing five mackintoshes, five pairs of overshoes and five
umbrellas.

Komatsu was very angry with O'Haru. He explained to Miss Campbell:

"I not wish, but she coming without not wish."

He pointed accusingly at the sad old face. O'Haru, dripping and
imperturbable, stood on the piazza near the entrance to the villa.

"That was very good of you, O'Haru; we appreciate your devotion," said
Miss Campbell, but the housekeeper did not appear to grasp all this fine
English. She seemed to be taking in every detail of the room and its
occupants. Nobody took any notice of her. All the ladies and the servants
were engaged in helping the guests on with their rain coats and
overshoes. Mme. Ito insisted on doing up their hats in paper bundles.

In the midst of a great deal of leave-taking and much smiling and bowing,
Yoritomo found time to say to Nancy:

"You see, chance has favored me to-day. The rain which kept me away from
the bridge has brought you to my home."

Nancy blushed in spite of her efforts not to. She felt half pleased and
half frightened at the earnest manner of the young Japanese. He was
undeniably handsome and graceful, with a self-possession she had never
seen equaled. Just then a dark figure darted across the floor so swiftly
that it was like a flash of brown wings in the air. There was a low
exclamation from the ladies, a bird-like chatter from the servants, and
for one brief moment the surprised Americans beheld old O'Haru on her
knees before little Kenkyo in the act of touching her forehead to the
floor. She drew a beautiful, bright-colored toy from her bosom and gave
it to the solemn-eyed little boy. Then, bowing again with extreme
reverence, she rose and left the house. When they next saw her she was
swinging along in the rain on her wooden clogs. Miss Campbell made
Komatsu stop the 'riksha and invited her to climb in, but she refused
politely but firmly.

"Extraordinary creature," exclaimed Miss Campbell, but Komatsu could
offer no explanation.




CHAPTER IV.

THE GARDEN IN THE RAIN.


For three interminable days the rain poured down uninterruptedly. The
floodgates of heaven had opened and it seemed as though they would never
close again. The all-pervading dampness and chill brought illness to the
Campbell household of a kind not to be healed by medicine. Homesickness
it was, and it spread rapidly like a contagious disease. Only one member
of the party of Americans was not afflicted and that was Mr. Campbell,
who had lived in many climates and countries and was accustomed to
seasons of rain and wet. Moreover, as he himself had said, he had no home
to be sick for. He felt a supreme content in the thought of having his
daughter with him and no amount of rain could chill his enthusiasm.

Miss Campbell took to her bed with an attack of rheumatism, brought on,
she insisted, from having sat on the floor at the home of Mme. Ito. Mary
began a diary of her experiences in Japan and had several private weeping
spells entirely due to the unsurpassed dismalness of the weather. Billie
endeavored to throw off her depression by giving Onoye lessons in English
in exchange for lessons in Japanese, and in the course of these lessons
she learned a little of Onoye's history. O'Haru had been obliged to go to
work after the death of her husband who had lost all his property in a
fire. Onoye's only brother had been killed in great "bat-tel." The family
had had "muchly unfortune. All money gone--nothing."

At the conclusion of this sad story told mostly by expressive gestures
and queerly chosen words, Onoye smiled sweetly. That is the only polite
thing for a well brought up Japanese girl to do even when her own
misfortunes are the subject of the conversation.

"What a shame," Billie exclaimed sympathetically. "I should think you
would learn something, some trade, I mean, Onoye. You are much too clever
to be a housemaid. But I suppose you will marry. I hear there are no old
maids in Japan."

Onoye shook her head and smiled sadly. Perhaps she did not understand
Billie's remark because she did not reply.

"Old maid, Onoye, is one who never marries," explained Nancy at the
dressing table arranging her hair.

"Ah, Komatsu old maid. He not marry."

"No, no, Komatsu is a man," said Billie trying not to laugh. "Old maid is
a woman who has no husband, like Miss Campbell."

"Old maid," repeated Onoye, and because of what happened that very
evening, it was evident that the retentive Japanese memory had not lost
the words.

In the afternoon there came a characteristic note from Mr. Campbell to
his cousin.

"Tell O'Haru to put on the big pot and the little," it ran, "and to kill
the fatted calf. I am going to cheer up my gloomy household by bringing
four men home to dinner. If it were not for these flimsy little card
houses, I would suggest a dance afterwards, but I couldn't answer for
the walls and roof if two young Americans danced a two-step in the
parlor."

"I am sure a two-step is no rougher than one of these storms of wind and
rain," observed Miss Campbell, feeling a sudden loyalty toward everything
American, including dances.

O'Haru was informed of the party and the house became at once a beehive
of activity. Several of the little maids, without being told, took down
all the dresses in the wardrobes and began drying them out with square
boxes of red embers.

"I'd like to be done the same way," remarked Miss Campbell. "I think I am
just as mildewed as my clothes."

The kitchen quarters of the house fairly vibrated with the stir of
preparation. In the living rooms the air was dried with small charcoal
stoves. The gardener was seen bringing in armfuls of flowers; and with
all the activity and preparation, there was no noise, not a sound. It
was positively uncanny.

Late in the afternoon Nancy slipped away from this noiseless busy scene
and tripped demurely down a garden path toward the bridge. She was not
exactly bent on mischief but she wanted to satisfy her curiosity about
something. The rain had lessened considerably but it was still necessary
for her to protect her recently arranged curls with her small blue silk
umbrella. In her mackintosh of changeable silk in two shades of blue, she
made a charming picture coming down the rain-soaked path. The garden
itself was a thing of beauty. On the end of every pine needle hung a
crystal drop, and through the thin veil of mist clinging to the shrubbery
a clump of azaleas glowed like a crimson flame. Taking a path to the
left, Nancy began the gentle and almost imperceptible descent to the
little bridge. The air was filled with the perfume of wild roses and late
plum blossoms. It was really a fairy land, this Japan; a place too
exquisite and unreal for human beings to live in. She began to sing
softly to herself Elinor's favorite song:

"'Know'st thou the land of the citron bloom?'"

As she approached the bridge she felt a little frightened for some
reason. It was rather reckless of her to come down to this lonely place
in the late afternoon even if it was their own premises. It was the first
time she had done it and she decided it would be the last. But as long as
she had come, she would see it through. Nancy could hardly explain to
herself what she meant by "seeing it through."

She would stroll carelessly down the path, walk across the bridge, pause
a moment and walk back again, not looking behind her of course, as, if
she were observed, and she was sure she was not, she would pretend she
was out for a walk and had not expected to meet anyone. Thus Nancy
reasoned with herself, but by the time she had reached the bridge she had
changed her mind and was about to turn and hasten back, when she noticed
a beautiful tea rose that had been laid conspicuously on the hand rail of
the bridge.

"He has been here," she thought. "He must have just gone. The rose is
quite fresh."

Sticking its long stem through the buttonhole of her raincoat, she
glanced about her curiously. Somehow, behind every clump of shrubs and
every branching pine tree she felt black eyes staring at her and yet she
was sure she was alone. Again she started for the house, feeling
profoundly relieved that Yoritomo had not waited, if, indeed, it was he
who had left the rose. Suddenly Nancy's heart jumped into her throat and
she felt a cold chill down her spinal column,--and for no reason, except
that standing in front of her was not a man, but a woman. The stranger
was too tall to be a Japanese and she was dressed, moreover, in European
clothes,--a beautifully fitting tailor-made suit and English traveling
hat of stitched cloth. But there was something faintly suggestive of the
Japanese about her face. Perhaps it was the slightly slanting eyes and
the smooth olive skin. Her hair was much lighter than her eyes and quite
fluffy; her features were regular and there was a graceful dignity in the
poise of her head on her shoulders. Nancy concluded after a swift
examination that she was, if peculiar looking, still strangely
fascinating.

"May I ask your pardon for intruding on your beautiful gardens?" began
the woman, speaking with a slightly English accent. "I did not expect
to meet any one on this rainy afternoon."

Nancy wondered how she had got into the garden and where she had come
from. These things the stranger did not explain. However, Nancy answered
politely:

"It isn't my garden, but I am sure Mr. Campbell would be delighted to
have other people enjoy it."

"You are a sweet child," said the woman, deliberately taking Nancy's chin
in her hand and looking down at her, "a sweet, exquisite child."

After all, Nancy decided, this mysterious lady was both fascinating and
beautiful.

"And who is Mr. Campbell?"

Nancy explained. In fact, after a few leading questions, she disclosed
the entire history of the household; who they were, how long they
expected to stay, and how they happened to be spending the summer in
Japan.

"Is it possible that you are the Motor Maids who have ridden so many
thousands of miles in a red car?" asked the stranger.

Nancy opened her eyes.

"Yes," she answered. "But we never dreamed we were so famous as that."

"Ah, you will find that Tokyo is not so far removed from the world,"
answered the woman, smiling gravely. "And Mr. Campbell is building a
railroad, you say?"

"No, I didn't say so," replied Nancy, a little surprised. "He's not
building anything that I know of. He is being consulted, or something."

But the stranger did not seem to have heard her.

"I must be going," she said absently. "You are an adorably pretty child.
It's been a pleasure to see you. I only wandered in here because I was
unhappy and wanted to be alone, but you have cheered me up. Run along,
now, and don't walk in Japanese gardens at dusk unattended too often."
Her glance fell on the tea rose. "And remember that the Japanese do not
understand the meaning of the word 'flirtation.' Good-by, _ma cherie,
belle et charmante_. You won't tell your Mr. Campbell that I trespassed
on his garden, will you? Promise?"

"I promise," answered Nancy, quite bewildered and fascinated.

Then the mysterious lady disappeared down a dripping path and Nancy was
left standing alone in the rain.

"I am sorry I promised," was her first thought. "It would have been such
fun to tell Billie." But her second thought was: "Billie would have
asked me why I had gone walking at dusk in the rain, and what a teasing I
should have got."

It was late and she hurried back to dress for dinner. No one had missed
her because Billie had been helping Miss Campbell into her best evening
frock, and the others were all engaged in their own toilets.

That evening at half past seven a very jolly party gathered around the
dinner table, which was a miracle of beauty with its decorations of apple
blossoms. Besides Nicholas Grimm and Yoritomo Ito, there were two
Englishmen, Reginald Carlton, a young man who was taking a trip around
the world by way of finishing his education, and Mr. Buxton, an older man
who lived in Tokyo. All the men wore evening clothes, although Mr.
Campbell had sighed when Billie made him appear in his. He was a man of
camps and open air and seldom appeared in society. Nancy watched his
rugged, handsome face admiringly.

"What a splendid looking man he is," she was thinking, when Yoritomo at
her right said in a low voice:

"You did go to the bridge."

"How do you know?" she asked.

"Because I saw the rose. It was fastened on your rain coat, which you
left on a hook in the passage with your wet umbrella."

"I only went for the air," said Nancy hastily. "I shall not go again
alone."

Yoritomo's face darkened, and he turned his attention to his dinner.

In the meantime the others were all amusing themselves in various ways,
and there was a great deal of talk and laughter. Miss Campbell felt
rejuvenated and her rheumatic twinges had entirely disappeared.

"There is nothing like a little pleasure for driving acidity out of the
system," she thought, as she finished the last spoonful of her dessert of
beautifully preserved fruits.

Onoye had entered, carrying a small lacquered tray on which lay a square,
foreign-looking visiting card.

"A lady calling to the honorable old maid," she announced calmly at Miss
Campbell's elbow.

"The what?" cried Mr. Campbell.

"The honorable old maid," repeated poor Onoye, with her precise accent,
smiling innocently.

There was a perfect shout of laughter. Only Yoritomo's face remained
impassive, but who could tell what angry thoughts were hidden behind that
mask-like face? Billie tried to explain how the mistake had occurred, and
Onoye rushed from the room in an agony of embarrassment and shame.

"Don't scold her, Cousin. She thought she had learned a new English
word," Billie besought Miss Campbell.

"Scold her? I should think not. I don't mind being called an 'honorable
old maid,' I am sure. But who is this caller, I wonder?" she added, in
a lower voice.

Mr. Campbell examined the card with some curiosity. "Mme. Marie
Fontaine," it read. Miss Campbell hastened into the drawing-room, and
Nancy, peeping through the doors a few minutes later, was surprised to
find that Mme. Fontame was her recent companion in the garden.

The visit was very brief, and Miss Campbell presently returned looking
somewhat amused and a little annoyed.

"Mme. Fontaine wished to know if she might have an interview with the
Motor Maids on the subject of their motor trip across the American
continent and through the British Isles."

"And what did you tell her?" demanded the four girls in one voice, it
must be confessed somewhat eagerly.

"I told her that while we appreciated the compliment, it would be
impossible."

"Quite right," said Mr. Campbell. "Publicity is the thing of all others I
wish to avoid, and if an article like that appeared in a Tokyo paper,
either in Japanese or English, you would probably be the object of the
most disagreeable curiosity. Am I not right, Yoritomo?"

"Oh, yes. It would not be agreeable to the young ladies. Many people
would come to look at them."

"I am very glad my action is approved, then," said Miss Campbell. "I have
an old-fashioned horror of notoriety like that, and I am sure none of my
girls would care to see herself in a newspaper. Would she?"

"No, indeed," they answered promptly in a chorus.

In a secret place in Nancy's mind, however, she saw a picture of her own
pretty face occupying at least one-third of a newspaper page and
underneath, blazoned in large letters: "The Beautiful Miss Anne Starbuck
Brown, One of the Famous Motor Maids."




CHAPTER V.

IN THE LIBRARY.


The house Mr. Campbell had sub-let for the summer was somewhat
labyrinthian in design, since it was only one story high and contained
many rooms for living and sleeping, besides the servants' quarters in the
rear. Mr. Spears had engaged a Japanese architect to build the house and
Japanese and European ideas were curiously combined in its construction.
Down the middle ran a broad hall, intersected at the back by another hall
running across the house. This was known as "the passage," and it was in
a manner a social boundary line, dividing the quarters of master and
servants. Only one opening broke the monotony of the uninterrupted
partition on the far side of the passage. This was the door into the
library which had been placed in a quiet and out-of-the-way corner
overlooking the garden.

This library was decidedly the most attractive and home-like room in the
villa. There was a large open fireplace at one end where a pile of
blazing logs now crackled cheerfully. It would have taken an immense
"go-down" to accommodate  all the books which lined the walls. But Mr.
Spears was evidently not afraid of fire, for they stood in serried ranks,
rows and rows of them, and between each group of shelves was a panel of
carved and polished wood. Over the mantel hung a beautiful Japanese
print. Curtains of some heavy material, old rose in color, hung at the
windows, and instead of the usual three by six mats, the floor was
covered with an Oriental rug in soft warm colors. There were many low,
comfortable chairs about and several tables on which stood shaded lamps.

Later in the evening after Mr. Campbell's dinner party, the three older
members of the company sat down in the drawing-room for a quiet game,
while the young people repaired to the library where they might talk and
laugh freely without fear of disturbing the players.

"Oh, I say, what a jolly room," exclaimed Reginald Carlton, looking about
him with interest.

"Isn't it?" agreed Billie. "Papa says that if people would only stick to
Japanese notions of decoration and add a few comfortable chairs to sit
in, they would never make any mistakes. You see, there's only one picture
in this room, but that's considered very fine. It's by a famous Japanese
artist."

"I like that one-picture idea," put in Nicholas Grimm, "especially if it
is at a comfortable elevation. Just pull up an easy chair and raise your
eyes and you have seen all there is to see. There's a delightful
simplicity about that to me. But I suppose Yoritomo would call this room
crowded, nevertheless. How about it, old man? It wouldn't take you
fifteen minutes to pull down the curtains and roll up the rug and store
them in the 'go-down.' Would it, now, honor bright?"

"No, no. I like the European furnishings," protested the Japanese. "You
must remember that I lived in America for many years. There is only one
thing I would store in the 'go-down,' and that is the little safe."

He pointed to a small American fire-proof safe in a corner of the room.

"But that is our 'go-down,'" laughed Billie. "We haven't any other. When
Papa first came here he discovered that there was no place to lock up
anything except some desk drawers, and he rented this little safe for his
papers. A Japanese gentleman advised him to do it. He told Papa there was
a great deal of curiosity here about the private business of foreigners."

A dark flush overspread Yoritomo's face and gradually faded out. The
others did not notice it, however. They had followed Nicholas across
the room and were standing in a circle around the safe, while the young
American touched it with a caressing hand.

"Made in Newark, N.J., U.S.A.," he exclaimed. "Think of that. It's like
meeting an old friend from home."

"A very proper kind of friend," observed Reginald. "The kind that keeps a
secret behind a combination lock."

"I don't call it being a real friend to have any combination at all," put
in Elinor, "because anybody who learns the combination can get the
secret."

Nicholas laughed.

"You don't understand the Japanese, Miss Butler," he exclaimed. "They
regard all persons with important secrets as combination safes. Sooner or
later they believe they can learn any combination if they only persist."

"Why don't you stand up for your country, Mr. Ito?" asked Nancy.

"What Nicholas says is true," answered Yoritomo. "If the secret concerns
his country, the Japanese will learn it if he must give up his life. What
you call 'spy' in your language should be changed to patriot, or one who
risks all for his country. Every Japanese is a spy, because every
Japanese will suffer for Japan."

"Perfectly good logic," said Nicholas.

"Are you a spy?" asked Mary, so innocently that even the imperturbable
Yoritomo laughed.

"I am, in the sense of being a patriot," he answered. "There is nothing I
would not do for Japan."

"Are you a Samurai?" asked Billie, hardly understanding the meaning of
the word.

"My grandfather was. There are no real samurai now. Only descendants."

"But what were they?"

Yoritomo's face became strangely animated.

"A samurai was a soldier," he said. "He was brave and feared neither
death nor suffering in any form. He carried two swords, a long one for
fighting and a short one for defense. The sword was the emblem of the
samurai spirit. He took pride in keeping it sharp and bright."

"Aren't some of the descendants of the old warrior samurai rather
fanatical?" asked Reginald. "That is, I mean--" he hesitated, seeing a
peculiar gleam in Yoritomo's eyes, "aren't some opposed to the entrance
of foreigners into Japan, and the invasion of foreign ideas--perhaps that
feeling has died out now?"

"The old samurai defended his country against the foreigner and no
descendant of a samurai, either now or ever, would endure for a foreigner
to learn the secrets of his country. But that is not fanaticism. That is
patriotism. He is very jealous of his country's honor, you understand.
You will look at the history of other countries. First it is only a few
foreigners; then more and more. They slip into the government. They
spread their ideas and customs--they get a foot-hold--then--all of a
sudden, what is it? Not Japan any longer--but--America--England."

"Oh, come off, Yoritomo," cried Nicholas, laughing. "What in the name of
all the powers are you driving at? There are about forty millions of
people on this island and I guess a few foreigners won't make much
headway in such a bunch as that."

"At least, you are not afraid of being Americanized, Mr. Ito," broke in
Nancy, "since you were educated in America."

"I am not afraid of the invasion of beautiful American young ladies,"
answered Yoritomo gallantly, and the others laughed and felt somewhat
relieved that the conversation had drifted into a less serious vein. They
drew their chairs into a circle about the fire and talked pleasantly for
some time, when they were summoned back to the drawing-room by Mr.
Campbell, who reminded Elinor of a promise she had made to him to sing
for them with her guitar.

This performance was a subject of wondering curiosity to the servants of
the household. Through the door to the dining-room Elinor caught a
glimpse of a multitude of natives crouched on the floor behind the
screen, including Komatsu and O'Haru, all the little maids, the
numerous grandmothers, and the 'riksha men who had brought the guests out
from Tokyo. If the music seemed strange to the Japanese ear trained for
centuries to a curious uneven scale, at least they admired Elinor's
lovely voice, clear and sweet as a bell. She had a large repertoire and
knew all the favorites of everybody. While she was singing "Oh, that we
two were Maying," at the request of Miss Campbell, Nancy, seated on the
couch beside Billie, near the door, whispered into her friend's ear:

"I left my handkerchief in the library," and slipped into the hall.
Hardly a moment later Billie, glancing through the door, saw Nancy in
the distance, beckoning violently. She rose and followed, much against
her will, thinking perhaps Nancy wished to bestow a confidence which
might just as well be kept until later.

"What on earth do you want?" she asked, with the irritability intimate
friends use toward each other without meaning really to be cross.

"The queerest thing has happened. The library is perfectly black dark."

"I don't think there is anything specially remarkable about that. The
fire had burned low before we left and I suppose one of the maids put out
the lamps. The Japs are nothing if not economical."

"They are nothing if not polite, too," argued Nancy. "And I am sure they
wouldn't put out the lights before the company left. Besides, they are
all listening to Elinor sing."

"Well, the lights are out and I don't see that it matters much,
Nancy-Bell. Let's go back and hear the rest of the song."

"Won't you come with me first to get my handkerchief?" pleaded Nancy. "I
know exactly where I left it, and I am afraid to go alone, if you want to
know the real truth."

"Oh, you little coward," laughed Billie good-naturedly, taking her arm.
"Come along, then."

The two young girls hastened down the long hall until they reached the
passage.

"Billie," whispered Nancy, pausing at the door. "You won't think me silly
if I tell you this? Of course it may have been imagination, but I was
awfully frightened when I came in here just now. I opened the door
suddenly and ran into the room before I realized it was dark. Then, of
course, I stopped short. The door had closed behind me and it seemed to
me that some one else was in the room. I remembered that as I opened the
door I heard some one move or collide with a chair. I stood perfectly
still for an instant. I was really frightened. Then I just flew."

"Perhaps it was one of the servants who had put out the lights and was
afraid to acknowledge it," suggested Billie. "The little maids are as
timid as wild things."

"But every servant in the house is in the dining room, I tell you. I saw
them as I went down the hall, and I counted them just for fun. There were
the four little maids and Onoye and O'Haru and Komatsu and the three
jinriksha men and the three old grandmothers and the gardener. There
aren't any others."

The door leading into the library was not a sliding panel of thick opaque
paper, like the usual Japanese door, but a real European door of heavy
wood with a brass handle.

"Don't you think we had better get your father, Billie, or one of the
boys?" whispered Nancy, placing a detaining hand on her friend's arm.

"But that would be a needless alarm. Everybody would want to know what
was the matter. There would have to be explanations and Cousin Helen
would be frightened. Besides, I am sure it was just your vivid
imagination, Nancy."

She opened the door very softly and peeped in. The room was flooded with
the radiance of two shaded lamps, both burning brightly; in fact, one had
been turned up too high, as if lighted in haste.

"Oh," gasped Nancy, in amazement.

But Billie was determined not to be surprised.

"Take my word for it, Nancy; one of the servants put out the lights by
mistake, thinking we had finished in here for the night, and when you
returned he or she was frightened and lit them again, thinking that
honorable American young lady might be displeased."

Nancy found her handkerchief.

"Very well," she said. "If that is your expert opinion I am willing to
abide by it, but I was fright--"

Before she could finish one of the long French windows blew open and a
gust of wet wind extinguished the lamp on a table near the window. Billie
marched boldly over and closed and bolted the window.

"Whoever it was," she said, "must have got out this way."

The girls exchanged a long glance of uneasy speculation. In the dim light
of the remaining lamp the room seemed filled with shadows. Billie drew
the heavy curtains across the casement. Those at the other window were
already drawn.

"Come along, Nancy-Bell," she exclaimed. "Thieves don't blow out lights
and then come back and relight them. It would be extremely unprofessional
if they did and very reckless besides. It's certain to be one of those
timid little persons in a kimono. We had better be getting back to the
drawing-room or Papa will be wondering what has become of us."

Hardly had they closed the door after them, when a figure, wrapped from
head to foot in a long brown garment something like a cape, emerged from
behind the other curtains. Whoever it was, whether man or woman, it was
impossible to judge, opened the door, peeped cautiously into the passage
and, finding it quite empty, marched boldly out. In another moment the
intruder had disappeared into the garden.

As the girls passed along the hall they paused to notice the picturesque
group of servants gathered near the door. There was a smile on every
face, not a smile of ridicule, but of courteous enjoyment.

"Is there any rude person in the length and breadth of Japan?" thought
Billie, while Nancy once more counted heads and then shook her own
thoughtfully.

"I don't understand," she pondered, "but Billie is usually right, so I'll
just cease to worry."




CHAPTER VI.

CHERRY BLOSSOMS.


A few hours of brilliant sunshine and all the dampness had been sucked up
from the earth; the air was warmed and dried and the mists rolled back
from the garden, revealing a fairy-land too exquisite to be real.

Something especially wonderful had happened that morning. The faces of
the little maids had been filled with a joyous expectancy as they hurried
from room to room on their household duties. A mysterious smile hovered
on the lips of Komatsu when he appeared to receive his orders. Even old
O'Haru was secretly immensely pleased about something, but they all had
evidently agreed among themselves to keep the great news secret until the
psychological moment had arrived when the ladies of the house and Mr.
Campbell had assembled on the piazza just before breakfast.

When this occurred word was swiftly and silently conveyed over the
household and all persons belonging to the domestic staff instantly
gathered in the hall and doorway.

"Why, what on earth is the matter with them?" Miss Campbell asked
uneasily. "Will you please look: the entire household collected in the
front hall."

Mr. Campbell was as much at a loss as his cousin.

"They look as if they were going to play a joke on us," observed Billie,
"Did you ever see anything so guileless and simple-hearted as they are?"

"Oh, I know what it is," cried Mary, clasping her hands with delight.
"There," she said, pointing to the old gardener, who was approaching by
way of one of the paths. There was an inimitable smile on his face, and
he carried tenderly and gingerly a double handful of brown branches on
which clustered delicate pink blossoms.

"It's the cherry blossoms! They are in bloom!" Mary shouted in her
enthusiasm. "That's why they are all so delighted. The dears! They are
just like a lot of children."

The crown of the year for the Japanese had indeed arrived, the season
when every cherry tree becomes a magnificent nosegay which has caught the
sunset's glow, and all the world goes forth to view the splendid sight.

The love of these people, young and old and of all classes, for flowers,
and particularly for cherry blossoms, is touching in its simplicity and
sincerity.

The old gardener was himself a delightful picture in his blue cotton,
tunic-like coat, queer, tight-fitting trousers and an enormous hat that
resembled an inverted flower basket. Against the coarse blue of his tunic
rested the delicate rosy cloud of blossoms. With an elaborate bow he
presented Mr. Campbell and each of the ladies with a branch. "Him muchly
more big soon all same," he said.

"Thank you, Saiki. They are very beautiful," said Miss Campbell, speaking
in the distinct, loud tone she used for persons not understanding her
own language.

The girls exclaimed and admired and Mr. Campbell was delighted. He felt a
kind of reverence for the old man's simple unaffected love of beauty. In
the meantime, the regiment of servants who had witnessed and enjoyed the
ceremony of presenting the first cherry blossoms to the master and
mistress of the house retired to their various occupations.

The pleasure and surprise of the foreigners over the beauty of the cherry
blossoms would be a memory for these humble people to cherish all their
lives. Perhaps they had never seen the like before, these honorable
barbarians; certainly nothing so perfect as the double blossom, of a
delicacy and shade not to be surpassed.

Later at the breakfast table Billie concocted a scheme.

"Papa," she began, "can't we take the 'Comet' and go sight-seeing? It
would be such fun, and while the 'rikshas are very nice, we are so
separated, we can't all sympathize together as we usually do."

"A kind of sympathy in detachments, is it?" asked Mr. Campbell. "But I
wanted to go with you on your first ride in the 'Comet.' I don't know
just how the people will take to a girl's driving a red 'devil-wagon,' as
they call it."

"Why not let Komatsu go along?"

"What do you think, Cousin?" asked Mr. Campbell.

Up to this time Miss Campbell had kept out of the discussion. The truth
is, she yearned to relieve the tedium of life by taking a trip in the red
motor car.

"Couldn't you get away and go with us?"

"Impossible this afternoon, because I have an appointment to meet some
very distinguished persons to discuss various plans. One can hardly be
polite enough as it is in this good-mannered country, and it would never
do to break an engagement. In another week or so I shall be free to take
the ladies on excursions."

"What is it all about, Papa?" asked Billie.

"Oh, government improvements, child. Things that are too important to be
talked about." He pinched her cheek. "Well, beautiful American ladies, if
you take Komatsu with you as interpreter and protector, guide and friend,
I think you might be trusted to make a little cherry-blossom excursion in
the 'Comet.' Only don't go too far or too fast and on your life don't run
over anything, even a chicken, or there'll be trouble for all concerned."

So it was settled, and after breakfast Billie rushed to the mysterious
back premises of the place on the other side of the house, where various
hitherto unsuspected industries seemed to be in progress. There was a
kitchen garden hidden by a hedge of althea bushes, a chicken yard, and
in a most picturesque building, used by the Spears for a carriage house,
the "Comet." So far they had been unable to find a chauffeur, and Mr.
Campbell himself had gone over all the machinery and put it in order.
Billie cranked up, and, jumping into her old accustomed place, guided the
motor car into the open. Komatsu came at a run from around the side of
the house. He was so amazed at sight of Billie in the chauffeur's seat
that he could not conceal his feelings.

"Komatsu, we want you to go with us to-day. We want you to show us the
cherry trees in Tokyo and Uyeno Park. I suppose we couldn't get to all
the famous cherry blossom places in one afternoon?"

"Him fast runner. No sakura all same see."

"No, no. We shall go quite slowly. We want to see everything."

In less than an hour the _hanami_, signifying in Japanese a picnic to a
famous place to view certain flowers in season, conducted on the most
modern lines in a red motor car, proceeded on its way. Komatsu, a
strangely incongruous figure, sat on the front seat beside Billie.

On the way to Tokyo the "Comet" created a sensation. All the varied
wayfarers on that picturesque highway paused and stared, pointing and
gesticulating.

The city was a vision of beauty. Most of its broad avenues are lined with
close set rows of cherry trees which were now bursting into blossom in
all the most delicate and exquisite shades of pink known to nature.
Komatsu guided them about the city with a kind of pleased and gratified
delight as if he were showing his own property. Sometimes he stood up and
pointed to the feathery tops of carefully nurtured cherry trees, glimpses
of which could be seen over the high walls surrounding private gardens.

The motorists were fairly bewildered by the beauty of it all. It was like
a vast conservatory with the roof taken off. Nothing could have been more
exotic or more lovely than the vista through the park with the white peak
of Fujiyama, queen of mountains, glistening in the distance.

Moreover, this little jaunt in the car had stirred their blood into
action. They felt once more the call of the road, the fever to be going.
The old accustomed sensation that they must make a certain place by such
and such a time had returned. They were of one opinion, this party of
Motor-Gypsies: to go back home until sunset would be a foolish waste of
golden hours. Their five wishes accorded like the notes of an harmonious
chord and presently Billie, influenced by the force of this silent
opinion, exclaimed:

"Suppose we take a country road and eat lunch later at some wayside tea
house?"

"Splendid!" cried the others almost before she had finished.

Miss Campbell raised one feeble objection--something about the
weather--but it was promptly overridden by her relative at the wheel,
and presently she settled down in her seat and abandoned herself to the
joy of motion.

"In all the ten thousands of miles we have covered in this car," she
remarked, "I never was happier than I am at this moment."

"Why can't we go to the Arakawa Ridge?" suggested Mary, consulting a
guide book. "It's only seven miles from here on the Sumida River and
there are miles and miles of road bordered by double-flowering cherry
trees."

This was agreeable to all concerned, and, accordingly, Komatsu guided
them to this famous spot, the pride of Tokyo. On the way they passed
hundreds of people in jinrikshas or on foot. Many of the pedestrians
carried paper parasols and fans, exactly like the chorus in the "Mikado."
Those who rode in the graceful little two-wheeled buggies looked out upon
the world with expressions of calm enjoyment.

The "Comet" was a conspicuous object as it progressed slowly along the
road, but so far all things worked together for good and there was no
cause for uneasiness. At a little roadside tea house they paused for
lunch. The building was nothing more than a shed with a low-hanging
thatched roof and sides made of coarse strips of matting joined together
with bamboo sticks. Humble as it was it possessed a peculiar charm, all
its own. They were presently to find that the rear of the tea house
facing a little garden was glorified into something rich and strange by a
magnificent azalea bush in full bloom. It reached to the roof of the
house and was a mass of deep red blossoms.

The ear was left in a pine grove near the house, and following Komatsu
along a rocky path they presently found themselves in this delectable
little garden. Here they were met by an old man and his wife, a very aged
couple whose gentle deprecating expressions almost moved Miss Campbell to
tears.

"The adorable old things," she exclaimed. "They remind me of two old
turtle doves."

Close at their heels came two little maids who conducted the ladies into
the tea house and brought tea for temporary refreshment, while Komatsu
consulted with the proprietor regarding lunch.

Presently one of the little maids hurried in and placed a menu in front
of Miss Campbell.

"Me speak little honorable American language," she said. "You like all
same American food? Will gracious lady make eyes to look?"

Miss Campbell raised her lorgnette and examined the menu while the small
maid backed away and disappeared, in the throes of extreme shyness over
her endeavors.

"Girls," said Miss Campbell, in a curious, strained voice, "don't any of
you dare to laugh because of course they are all peeping at us from
somewhere, but I want you all to make eyes to look at this amazing
production."

They crowded about her and over her shoulder read the following menu:

_Soup by egge
Eels to rice
Seaweed
Podadoe Sweete
Sponge boiled
Doormats a la U. S._

There were tears of laughter in Miss Campbell's eyes and her voice was so
shaky she could hardly trust herself to speak, even when she saw the
little maid returning around the corner of the azalea bush. The faces of
the four girls were crimson with suppressed laughter.

"Very nice, my dear," said Miss Campbell, "you may bring in luncheon as
soon as you can."

After she had gone there was a brief but eloquent silence.

"Do, some one, make a joke," whispered Elinor.

At that moment a strange looking bob-tailed cat walked by.

"There," cried Nancy, and they all instantly burst into hysterical
laughter.

"In the name of good health and excellent digestion, tell me what are
doormats?" asked Billie.

"Dear knows," answered her cousin, "but I think if they must be eaten it
would be best to take boiled sponges afterward."

The luncheon was purely Japanese, in spite of the English menu, and it
was really excellent.

"I never thought to come to eels," Miss Campbell observed, but she
enjoyed her portion, nevertheless.

"Doormats a la U. S." turned out to be a sweet cake with a sugary icing.

"I believe they were intended for doughnuts," observed that astute little
person, Mary Price, and no doubt she was quite right.

When the feast was over Miss Campbell paid the bill, which was
pathetically small, since there was no charge for tea and sweetmeats.

"How do we give the tip?" she asked.

"I know," answered Billie, "Papa taught me about that the other day." She
consulted her note book. Tearing out a leaf, she wrapped up what would
amount to about a dollar in American money, then with her little silver
pencil she wrote on the package "On chadai." "That means 'honorable money
for tea,'" she explained.

Next she clapped her hands. All through the house voices could be heard
calling "Hai! Hai!"

Presently the maid appeared hanging her head humbly.  Billie motioned to
her that she wished the proprietor, who, indeed, was close at hand. With
an expression of much surprise he received the chadai and bowing to the
ground murmured something which Komatsu explained meant honorable thanks
for poor insignificant service.

Each guest on departing received a fan as a souvenir; because, as they
were to learn before they left Japan, no Japanese ever receives a present
without giving another in return. Every person attached to the tea house
went out to see the departure of the car, and the old woman clutched her
husband's arm fearfully when she heard the vibrations of the machinery
and saw Billie turn the "Comet" down the hillside to the main road.

At last, fortified by strange if not unpalatable food and thoroughly
enjoying themselves, they arrived at the entrance to the magnificent
avenue called Arakawa Ridge, along each side of which, as far as the eye
could see, ran two rows of cherry trees in full bloom.

The avenue was lined with 'rikshas, and hundreds of pedestrians paced
slowly along. They were in holiday attire and the bright colors of the
kimonos and obis made a bewildering and brilliant picture. At intervals
booths had been erected, decorated with lanterns, where refreshments were
sold, and nearby a roving band of musicians and dancers were entertaining
the crowd.

The mistake Billie made was to attempt to take the car through the
crowded road where apparently there were only pedestrians and jinrikshas.
But Komatsu had not objected and since they had been accustomed to take
the "Comet" wherever there was a navigable road, they pushed innocently
on. As for the populace celebrating the cherry blossom festival, they
evidently regarded the sight of a young woman driving a red devil-wagon
as something just short of miraculous. Slowly and at a dignified pace the
motor car moved along the avenue, and suddenly like a bolt from the blue
two things happened.

A little boy escaped from his sister's hand and ran across the road.
Billie reversed the lever just as the child fell under the wheels. At the
same instant a tire on a rear wheel exploded with a loud report.

Miss Campbell groaned and hid her face in her hands.

Instantly they were surrounded by a mob of angry people.




CHAPTER VII.

A BAD QUARTER OF AN HOUR.


In the uncertainty of that terrible moment everything turned black before
Billie's eyes.

"I am a murderer," was all she could think. "I've killed a little child."

When the mists had cleared away she saw a weird scene about her: hundreds
of Japanese men and women, speaking in low angry voices which somehow
reminded her of the breaking of the surf on the beach--perhaps because
the Japanese language has a sing-song rhythm. The little boy, apparently
limp and lifeless, lay in his sister's arms. Komatsu had leapt clear over
the front of the car and pushed his way through the people gathered about
them. With a hand as skillful as a doctor's he felt the child's pulse and
placed his ear over his heart.

"Baby only make believe dead," he said. "Honorable heart beating all same
like steam engine."

At these hopeful words Miss Campbell came to herself with a start. For a
moment she had been faint and sick with the notion of what had happened.
Never before in all their thousands of miles of touring in the "Comet"
had they injured so much as a fly; and now to run down a little child! It
was too dreadful to contemplate.

"Komatsu," she ordered, in an unsteady voice, "tell the girl to get in
and we will take her brother to the nearest doctor."

Komatsu conveyed this message to the stricken sister, who shook her head
violently.

"Honorable devil-wagon shoot pistol. Japanese no likee," he said.

Closer and closer pressed the tense mob about the party. These courteous
and gentle Japanese had suddenly been transformed into a fierce, savage
people.

From one end of Japan to the other a child is considered a sacred thing.
If Billie had injured a grown person the public sentiment would not have
been so strong, but to harm one of these little "treasure flowers" was to
strike at the very heart of the nation.

"Can't you understand that we are sorry and anxious to help you?" cried
Miss Campbell, addressing the mob, but her voice was lost in the subdued
threatening murmur which sounded like distant thunder heralding the
approach of a storm.

"Good heavens, Komatsu, what are we to do? The child might be saved if
they would only listen to reason."

"People no likee honorable devil-wagon. Going breaking little pieces all
same like sticks."

"No, no, they must not," ejaculated Billie. "We are sorry," she cried,
stretching out her hands appealingly to the circle of Japanese pressed
around the car. "We didn't mean to do it."

In the meantime Miss Campbell had produced her bottle of smelling salts,
the same that had accompanied her on all her trips, and climbed out of
the car. With a motion imperious and compelling she pushed aside the men
and women in the circle.

The sister had laid the child on the ground and was kneeling beside him.
Komatsu knelt on the other side, feeling the little legs and body.

"No break bones," he said briefly.

Miss Campbell sat on the ground by the unconscious child, wondering
vaguely if she would ever rise again.

"They may tear us to pieces before we get back. They are like an angry,
silent pack of wolves," she thought to herself. "Komatsu," she said
aloud, "I believe he has fainted from fright," She put the smelling
bottle to the baby's funny snub nose.

Presently the boy opened his eyes.

At this moment from the midst of the crowd there came a strange shrill
cry and a distracted looking woman began beating and fighting her way
toward the group.

"Honorable mother come in big hurry," said Komatsu, in a low voice.
"Gracious lady, take jinriksha. Honorable quickness best now."

"But the child isn't injured, Komatsu. Look, he's opened his eyes and
he's going to sit up. It was simply fright."

"No like honorable devil-wagon," went on Komatsu steadily.

While this low, rapid dialogue was taking place Billie, standing on the
front seat of the "Comet" on the lookout for help, saw something that
made her blood turn cold. A band of fierce looking young men in Japanese
costume was approaching on the run. The leader was brandishing a short
knife with a two-edged glittering blade and the others flourished sword
canes. Billie was thankful that Miss Campbell was too much occupied at
that moment in assuring the poor mother that her child was not injured to
notice this murderous looking company. Komatsu had quietly placed himself
beside the car, faithful soul, ready to die in the service of his ladies.

Were they all going to be cut to pieces or was only the "Comet" to be
sacrificed in revenge for the accident?

The Motor Maids exchanged frightened glances.

"If I only knew six words in Japanese," thought Billie.

"Make honorable quickness to descend, gracious lady. Come, come," Komatsu
urged. "To jinriksha. Leave red devil-wagon. This place no good for
staying in."

"Oh, Komatsu, try and reason with them," pleaded Billie. "We don't want
to lose the 'Comet,' It wasn't his fault. He was going quite slowly. He
didn't mean to hurt the little boy. He's the kindest hearted old thing.
It wasn't anybody's fault. Can't you tell them that?"

Billie was too distracted and unhappy to realize how absurd her words
might have sounded to any English-speaking person. It had always seemed
to her that a real heart beat somewhere in the mechanical organism of the
red motor. Gasoline was his life's blood and his pulse-beats were only
the throb of the engine, but, to Billie, he was a faithful and devoted
soul and she was not quite prepared to say what she would do in order to
save him from destruction.

However, at the moment that the band of young men, scarcely more than
boys any of them, reached the car, some one sprang into the machine from
the other side.

Turning quickly, Billie was confronted by a tall, slender young woman in
a white serge suit and a big black hat. She had a dark, creamy
complexion, dark eyes that slanted slightly and hair of a queer mousy
shade of brown.

"Wait," said the stranger, "I will speak to them," and mounting the seat,
she addressed the crowd in their own tongue with extraordinary fluency,
the girls thought, remembering what they had heard concerning the
difficulties of that language. There was an elegance and fascination
indescribable about the stranger. Nancy recognized her instantly as the
lady in the garden. Miss Campbell knew her as Mme. Fontaine, newspaper
correspondent. The others in the party imagined her to be almost anything
romantic and interesting; perhaps a foreign princess; a great actress;
something remarkable, surely.

In a beautiful, cultured voice, far reaching in spite of its soft tones,
she harangued the multitude which little by little fell back. The group
of fierce young men put away their weapons and disappeared in the mob.
The little boy, the cause of all the trouble, was now standing on his
feet blinking his eyes at Miss Campbell. How the picture was stamped on
their minds like a vividly colored print!

Miss Campbell took out her purse and gave the mother of the boy some
money. Being still quite ignorant of Japanese coinage she did not pause
to make any laborious calculations, but poured all the money in the purse
into the woman's outstretched hand. It must have been an undreamed-of
sum, for the mother's face was wreathed in delighted smiles. She bowed
until her forehead almost touched the ground, as did the witnesses of
this princely generosity.

"It's all over now," said Mme. Fontaine, stepping down from the seat and
smiling at Billie. "You had a bad quarter of an hour, though, I fear."

"I don't know how we can ever thank you," exclaimed Billie. "You not only
saved the car from destruction, but you may have saved us, too. There's
no telling how far they would have gone once they got started."

"No, no, they would not have harmed you, but they might have injured the
car. They are a good deal like children, but they are not butchers. I
think they admired your courage, too, for not deserting the sinking
ship."

Miss Campbell now approached and held out her hand gratefully.

"You are heaping coals of fire on my head, Mme. Fontaine," she said.
"Yesterday I refused to grant you a favor and to-day you are placing us
everlastingly in your debt."

"No, no, you must not put it that way," said the other woman, with a
graceful movement of protest. "You were quite right not to be interviewed
if you did not wish it. Some Americans do not object to publicity, you
know. One can never tell. But what I did just now any other person who
spoke both languages would have been glad to do."

The end of the episode was that Mme. Fontaine waited with Miss Campbell
and the three girls, while Billie, in the center of a curious circle of
onlookers and with the help of Komatsu, put on a new tire.

"Are you in a 'riksha?" asked Miss Campbell of their deliverer. "We would
be glad if you would let us take you back to Tokyo in the car. My young
cousin is a careful and experienced chauffeur. This is the only accident
of the sort we have ever had and I think it was entirely the fault of the
child."

"Oh, I am not in the least timid in motor cars and I accept with
pleasure," answered Mme. Fontaine quickly.

Some twenty minutes later, with Komatsu running ahead to clear the road,
the "Comet" threaded his way at a snail's pace along the Arakawa Ridge.
No doubt his mechanical organism, which Billie had endowed with a soul,
heaved a sigh of relief when they took the road home.

"Who were the young men with the knives and sword canes, Mme. Fontaine?"
asked Mary on the way back.

"Oh, they are a group of fanatical young persons opposed to foreigners.
Most of them are descendants of the samurai. They believe in old Japan.
They talk the wildest kind of nonsense, and while their beliefs are
opposed to progress, they represent in Japan what the Nihilists represent
in Russia and the Anarchists and such people in other countries. They
will outgrow it in time. Some of the finest men in Japan once belonged to
these clubs of _soshi_, as they are called. In another generation there
will be very few of them left. In the meantime they are quite dangerous
occasionally. About fifty years ago a band of them attacked the English
Legation at Takanawa and there was a fierce fight. But I feel perfectly
sure that they wouldn't attack people now. Only motor cars and the like."

"That would have been bad enough," remarked Billie, patting the wheel of
the "Comet."

Mme. Fontaine smiled pleasantly.

"After the great excitement may I not have the pleasure of offering you a
reviving cup of tea at my house? It would make me very happy."

Miss Campbell would have much preferred to go straight home, but to
decline the invitation would have seemed ungracious and she accepted
promptly.

Along the broad streets of Tokyo, under out-stretched boughs heavy with
blossoms, they rolled, and at last Billie paused as directed at a gate in
a wall behind which was a charming little house, set in the usual
beautiful garden.

If Mme. Fontaine was fascinating and elegant, so also was her home. The
drawing-room, which seemed to occupy most of the second floor, was
furnished in European fashion with deep chairs and couches, Oriental rugs
and rich hangings. There was a grand piano near the windows, and on the
walls were the rarest and most beautiful Japanese prints. It was a
blending of the East and West and was one of the most artistic and
delightful apartments the girls had ever seen. In the dim shadowy
confines they caught glimpses of teakwood cabinets in which were carved
ivories and pieces of fine porcelain. The girls would have liked well to
linger another hour among all these interesting and strange objects, but
Miss Campbell, for some reason, was in her most conventional mood. While
her manner toward Mme. Fontaine left nothing to be desired and she was
graciousness personified, she cut the call to twenty-five minutes by the
French clock on the mantel, and then go she would. As they were leaving
Mary noticed on a table near the door two splendid swords, one very large
and heavy and one with a double-edged blade of much smaller size.

"Oh, are these the swords of a samurai warrior?" she demanded, with
excited interest.

"Yes," answered Mme. Fontaine. "They belonged to my great grandfather."

Not until they were back in the "Comet" and well on the way home did they
realize the meaning of her words.

"Then," exclaimed Nancy, "she is half Japanese."

"And I've invited her to dine the day after tomorrow," Miss Campbell
remarked irrelevantly.

The adventure on Arakawa Ridge was far-reaching in its results as a
matter of fact, but the most immediate one was a severe punishment
administered by that usually kind and gentle person, Mr. Campbell, on no
less a victim than the "Comet." Just what the punishment was you will
find out when the Motor Maids themselves discover it.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE COMPASSIONATE GOD, JIZU.


Miss Campbell was very dubious about having invited Mme. Fontaine to
dine.

"Of course she was very kind," she remarked, "and we owe her a great
deal, but I wish we could show our appreciation in some other way. We
don't know anything about her: who she is; where she came from; whether
she has any family."

"But, my dear cousin," said Mr. Campbell, who had wandered about the
world so much that he was accustomed to taking people without any
questions, "what difference does it make? You say she is refined and
well-bred. We know she is kind because of what she did for us. But I will
make some inquiries about her if you like--"

"I never liked mixed bloods," interrupted Miss Campbell, not listening to
her relation.

"Everybody has some mixture of bloods," laughed Billie. "Look at
Mary--French and English; look at Elinor--Scotch and Irish."

"No, no," protested Miss Campbell "Those aren't the kinds of mixtures I
referred to. It's those queer Oriental bloods--yellow people and white
people."

The others all smiled indulgently. Miss Campbell was just a little
old-fashioned lady with old-fashioned restricted views, they thought. She
was the only one of the motor party who had not fallen under the spell of
Mme. Fontaine, and apparently the only cause for her objection was
because this charming stranger was part Japanese and wrote for the
newspapers.

That evening Mr. Campbell endeavored to set her fears at rest.

"I have inquired about your mysterious Mme. Fontaine," he said. "She is a
widow. Her husband was editor of a paper in Shanghai. She herself is a
writer and a newspaper correspondent. She has written several novels
published in Shanghai, and she is generally considered to be a very
bright person. She has been living in Tokyo not quite a year and goes out
very little."

This fragment of her history only seemed to deepen the atmosphere of
romance which enveloped the "Widow of Shanghai," as Mr. Campbell would
call her, and the Motor Maids rather eagerly awaited the evening when she
was to dine with them.

In the meantime, they were to receive a ceremonious call from the family
of Yoritomo Ito, and he himself was to act as interpreter for the three
Japanese ladies, his mother, his aunt and his sister. They appeared one
afternoon in two jinrikshas and such a bowing and smiling was never seen
before. The day had been sultry and hot and tea was served in the
summer-house in the garden by the little maids attached to the household.
Miss Campbell was sorry that the pretty Onoye, flower of the staff, did
not appear. However, these things were all left to O'Haru, and she said
nothing.

Yoritomo's sister, O'Kami San (that is to say: the honorable Miss Kami),
spoke a very little English. This fact she had bashfully hidden from the
girls on the occasion of their first meeting. But when Billie, through
Yoritomo, asked his sister to walk in the garden, she answered herself:

"Receive thanks. Honorable walk will confer pleasure."

Assuredly the Japanese-English dictionaries and phrase books must all use
the most stilted and ceremonious English words, so Billie thought.

"'Receive thanks and confer pleasure!' How absurd!"

But then Billie did not realize that the Japanese language abounds in
such ceremonious words and high-sounding phrases and, in order to keep
the spirit of the original, translations are generally literal.

Off they trooped down a garden path, followed by the reproachful eyes of
Miss Helen Campbell, who found it a decided strain on the nerves to keep
a second-hand conversation going. Nancy lingered behind and helped her
out by giving Yoritomo an account of their accident on Arakawa Ridge.
This he immediately passed on to his mother and aunt.

In the meantime, O'Kami San, trotting along beside Billie, with Mary and
Elinor following behind, might have just stepped out of a Japanese fan.
She was so entirely unreal and cunning that the girls had no eyes for the
rosy rain of cherry blossoms dropping from the trees, nor the lovely
vista of garden with its flaming bushes of azaleas and cool green clumps
of ferns. Out of compliment to the season O'Kami San wore a robe of
delicate pink embroidered all over with sprays of cherry blossoms in
deeper shades. Her obi, or sash, was of pale green silk. Her hair was
elaborately pompadoured and drawn up in the back into a large glossy roll
held in place with tortoise shell pins. No doubt it had taken hours to
arrange; two, at the very least.

Billie patted her own smooth rolls serenely.

"Suppose I had to sleep with my neck on a little wooden bench every night
to preserve my _coiffure_," she thought. "I think I'd just lay my head
on the executioner's block and say, 'Strike it off. It's not worth the
trouble.'"

"Think garden pretty, O'Kami San?" began Mary, whose method of talking
with the Japanese was to preserve only the framework of a sentence and
drop all articles and small words.

"Much pretty. Me--like honorable garden and beautiful American ladee,"
answered O'Kami, speaking slowly and distinctly.

English pronunciation never seemed to trouble the Japanese. It was only
choice of words and construction.

"What do you do all day, O'Kami San?" asked Elinor.

"Much honorable work," answered the Japanese girl. "Cook-ing; sew-ing";
she pointed to her kimono; "mu-seek; book-stu-dee. Ah, much work to
become wife."

"You are not thinking of marrying, surely? Your brother says you are only
sixteen," protested Mary.

O'Kami nodded her head and smiled.

"Arrange all the day before to this."

"Do you love him?" asked Mary, in an awed tone of voice.

O'Kami looked puzzled. The word "love" she had not learned.

"O'Kami much happy. Honorable mother of husband not any more. Gone." She
pointed up.

"Goodness!" broke in Elinor. "She means that there will be no
mother-in-law, so the marriage is sure to be a happy one. What a
mother-in-law ridden place this country is!"

She spoke too rapidly for the Japanese girl to grasp the meaning of any
word except "mother-in-law."

"Mother-in-law," she repeated slowly. "Little Japanese girl much afraid
to great mother-in-law."

The girls laughed and O'Kami's silvery note mingled with theirs.

"I found something quite new and interesting in the garden the other
day," observed Mary. "Or rather not quite new, but quite old. Who wants
to see it?"

"Lead on, Macduff," ordered Billie.

"It's an old shrine," continued Mary. "Komatsu says it's to the
Compassionate God, Jizu. He's sitting cross-legged in a little niche in
the hillside below the bridge and he has a beautiful frame of clematis
vines around him. I think he's delightful."

O'Kami San was unable to grasp the meaning of this rapid fire of words,
at least it seemed to her to be a rapid fire. Most people are under the
impression that a foreign language is spoken faster than their own. But
she trotted along beside the others, always with the same polite,
intelligent smile, as if she understood every word.

Having crossed the bridge, they followed a narrow path through a grove of
pine trees. The path took an unexpected curve to the right and led them
around the side of a grassy embankment under which sat the stone image of
the Compassionate God, Jizu. The inscrutable smile of the nation hovered
on the lips of the ancient idol, and his compassionate stone eyes looked
out upon the green little world around him with a gentle tolerance. Time
and tempests had worn away his arms and softened the outlines of his
stone countenance. He was indeed a graven image of kindly mien and of a
certain majesty of expression.

But there was, another visitor at the shrine of the Compassionate God.
She lay flat on her face in a tumbled, many-colored little heap before
the gray old image at whose feet was her offering: a pitiful little bunch
of wild roses. She had been sobbing. It was easy to tell. The storm of
weeping had passed now and she lay quite still, but at intervals there
was that catch in the breath which follows a period of bitter crying.

The three American girls paused at the edge of the miniature lawn about
the shrine and exchanged embarrassed glances. O'Kami Sail drew back a
step or two. It was their intention to creep away as noiselessly as
possible and leave the unhappy worshiper at the shrine none the wiser
that she had been observed by profane, foreign eyes. But at this moment a
temple bell not far off sent out a clear silver note in the stillness.
The bright-colored heap stirred into life and the sorrowful worshiper
rose and looked about her bewildered.

It was Onoye, as they had suspected, and Mary recalled that it was the
second time she had seen the Japanese girl crying miserably when she
thought she was alone.

Onoye tried to smile when she saw the three young ladies of the house
looking at her with great concern. She ran to Billie and fell on her
knees.

"Forgive, gracious lady," she said, endeavoring to compose her expression
to its usual tranquility.

"Why, you poor dear, what have I to forgive?" exclaimed Billie, trying to
raise Onoye to her feet.

"Why are you so unhappy, Onoye? Is there anything we can do for you?"
asked Elinor.

"Do tell us and let us help you," put in Mary.

But Onoye was silent.

"O'Kami San, will you not ask her?" said Billie. "Perhaps she would tell
you in Japanese when she can't in English."

At the words "O'Kami San," Onoye jumped to her feet in subdued
excitement.

"O'Kami San," she repeated.

The two Japanese girls confronted each other. They spoke in low, rapid
voices and their faces were so calm and unemotional they might have been
two Japanese dolls wound tip to move the lips and occasionally make a
slight gesture with one hand. Presently Onoye slipped from her _obi_ a
small package done up in crêpe paper and gave it to O'Kami, who concealed
it in the voluminous folds of her own kimono. They exchanged low,
ceremonious bows and Onoye hurried away, while O'Kami turned to the
mystified young-Americans with an apologetic smile.

"Receive excuses and pardon grant," she said.

Billie made a superhuman effort not to laugh, while Mary stooped to break
off a spray of azaleas and Elinor examined intently a stunted pine tree
planted in a big green jar near the path.

Japanese gardeners are very fond of cultivating these dwarf trees. Some
of the tiniest are said to be of great age. The arrested development
contorts the venerable branches into strange twisted forms but they put
forth blossoms and foliage with systematic dignity.

"What is the matter with our little maid? Were you able to find out?"
Billie asked the visitor.

But O'Kami San was not inclined to be communicative, and they were
obliged to return to the summer-house with their curiosity entirely
unsatisfied. In the meantime, Miss Campbell and Nancy were in a painful
state of embarrassment about what to say next. The conversation had come
to a dead stop, while Miss Campbell, with a flushed face, raised her eyes
to heaven with a prayerful look and Nancy endeavored to say a few words
about the weather. Yoritomo was inclined to be silent, too. He kept his
eyes on the floor and only raised them to transmit Miss Campbell's
remarks to his mother and aunt.

"Will you ask your mother, Mr. Ito, if--she suffers from rheumatism from
sitting on the floor so much?" asked Miss Campbell, groaning mentally and
sending up a prayer that the visitors would see fit to bring the visit to
an immediate end.

There was a short colloquy between mother and son, during which Mme. Ito
smiled blandly and waved her fan to and fro.

"No, Madam, my mother does not have that complaint," answered her son in
precise English.

Miss Campbell flashed a glance of black reproach at Nancy, as much as to
say:

"It's your turn now, ungrateful girl. Speak, for heaven's sake."

Nancy exchanged a hopeless glance with the distracted lady. Then she
remarked:

"Mr. Ito, is your aunt married?"

Yoritomo smiled broadly.

"She is a widow," he replied. "In Japan all widows cut their hair short."

"But what a strange custom," objected Nancy. "That would keep them from
ever marrying a second time. I'm sure I should never cut my hair if my
husband died. I should use hair tonic to make it grow longer and
thicker."

Yoritomo laughed outright and communicated Nancy's views to his
relatives. They laughed, too, and contemplated her knot of chestnut curls
with much admiration.

There came another uncomfortable pause. Two simultaneous winged prayers
went up into the ether and relief was granted in an unexpected and
startling guise. Billie and her friends had just returned and tea and
refreshments of a light volatile nature were being passed for the fourth
time, by order of Miss Campbell. The visitors were elaborately declining
all further nourishment when Nancy saw an arm raised from behind a thick
clump of shrubbery near the summer-house. It was clothed in nondescript
brown and long fingers clutched a stone. The arm gave a swift circular
movement, as if to gain impetus. Then it went backward with a movement of
a pitcher about to throw a ball.

"Yoritomo," shrieked Nancy, for the stone seemed to be aimed straight at
his head.

In the fraction of an instant the young Japanese had ducked and the stone
had crashed into the summer-house and fallen at his feet, making a dent
in the floor.

Undoubtedly Nancy had saved his life.

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Miss Campbell, but Mme. Ito and her sister and
daughter were perfectly calm and silent, as were also the Japanese maids,
gathered in a frightened group behind them.

"I never saw people take on so little," Miss Campbell observed later,
describing the incident to her cousin.

Nancy wept softly. It was never very difficult for her to weep and she
emerged from one of these gentle paroxysms--even as the flowers after
a summer rain--a little dewy but refreshed.

Yoritomo vaulted over the rail of the summer-house and ran in the
direction of the group of shrubbery. But, of course, no one was there.
Who could expect an assassin to wait and be caught?

"I think we had better get into the house at once," ordered Miss
Campbell, and taking Mme. Ito's arm, she hurried the little lady up the
path, calling to the others to follow. Once in the drawing-room, all the
windows were ordered closed and the doors locked, while Komatsu was sent
to search the premises.

"What is your opinion, Mr. Ito?" asked Billie. "Was it an enemy of yours
or some one who wanted to exterminate us because we are foreigners?"

But Yoritomo could not enlighten her.

"I cannot say," was all they could get out of him.

He was only deeply chagrined, as was his mother, that the American ladies
should have been subjected to such treatment in Japan.

The Campbell party finally arrived at the conclusion that it was an
insane person, and Mr. Campbell immediately engaged a day and night
watchman and reported the matter to the police.




CHAPTER IX.

A BIRTHDAY PARTY.


It so happened that the dinner to Mme. Fontaine became a triple
celebration. Billie recalled that it was her father's birthday, for one
thing.

"He's forgotten it himself," she said. "He never did remember that he was
entitled to a birthday."

Furthermore, it was the occasion always of great rejoicing in Japan,
being the fifth day of the fifth month on which the Boys' Festival--_O
Sekku_, as it is called there--is celebrated.

"Think of my sweet old boy being born on this lucky day!" cried Billie.
"Why can't we give him a real Japanese surprise party, Cousin Helen, and
invite those nice men to come? Mr. Ito will tell us what to do."

When Mr. Campbell departed for Tokyo that lovely morning on the fifth of
May he had no idea of the plans that were hatching in his home. Scarcely
had his 'riksha disappeared down the road, when the entire household
became actively busy. Komatsu made a hurried visit to town, bearing notes
of invitation to the few acquaintances of the Campbells and returned
later in the day accompanied by two men carrying large bales on their
backs. That evening when the master of the house returned in time to
dress for dinner he scarcely recognized his abode, which had been
decorated in a most extraordinary manner.

Across the front of the house on long poles were at least six enormous
paper carp, which rose and fell and became realistically inflated with
every passing breeze. Very fantastic they appeared with their gaping
mouths, their enormous bulging eyes and fins and their scales shining in
the sunlight.

The carp, it must be known, is the sacred emblem of the male child in
Japan. It also signifies courage, endurance and other admirable though
not exclusively masculine qualities. This valiant fish can accomplish the
difficult feat of swimming up the rapids, even as a brave youth must
conquer difficulties and surmount obstacles. His name is synonymous with
perseverance and fortitude. The fifth of May is every boy's birthday in
Japan, no matter what his real birthday is, and on that day a feast is
kept in every home, rich or poor, where there is a son.

"I suppose, because we have only one son in our house, we are entitled to
only one carp," observed Billie, "but I think our nice old boy is good
enough for us to string up twenty carp."

This statement was unanimously acceded to by all persons connected with
the feast.

All the afternoon the girls had worked over the decorations. The garden
was strung with lanterns much more beautiful and artistic in design than
any that ever reach America; and the house, under the supervision of
Onoye and her mother, was made beautiful with the splendid iris in all
its varying shades from deep purple to pale mauve. Among their long,
slender, delicate leaves the flowers seemed to be growing in the shallow
dishes in which devices of soft lead held them in place.

"Are we entertaining a family of sons this evening or have we just
decided to celebrate whether we have sons or not?" asked Mr. Campbell,
greeting his daughter on the piazza.

"We are entertaining for our only son, the most promising and delightful
young man in the entire universe," answered Billie, kissing him.

"I always thought you were a singularly fortunate young man, Duncan,"
remarked Miss Campbell, "but I shall no longer attribute it entirely to
industry, intelligence and good looks."

"What's the reason, then, Cousin Helen?" asked Mr. Campbell, laughing.

"Why, have you forgotten, boy, that this is your birthday? Forty-five
years old, and you don't remember it!"

"I did forget it," said Mr. Campbell, "but I don't see where the luck
comes in."

They explained the meaning of the Boys' Festival and the lucky
coincidence that had brought him into the world on that auspicious day.

"Go in now and get dressed, for the Widow of Shanghai will be arriving
pretty soon and other company besides," ordered Billie.

The girls had dressed early and their pretty summer frocks gleamed softly
against the green of the shrubbery as they flitted about the garden and
the lawn in the twilight. Nancy was wearing her first train that night;
it was only a wee bit of a train, nothing regal and sweeping; but it gave
her a secret thrill to throw it over one arm, displaying her lace trimmed
petticoat underneath, while she tripped along the garden path. The dress
was of pink batiste and delicate lace, and from the round neck her throat
rose soft and white like a column. She was the first of the four friends
to wear a train. Even Elinor, tall and slender in her white lingerie
frock, had not aspired to that dignity. Billie was wearing her best blue
mulle that became her mightily because it was near the shade of her
blue-gray eyes, and little Mary was dressed in one of the dainty muslin
frocks that her mother excelled in making.

"They are no longer little girls," thought Miss Campbell, rather sadly,
it must be confessed. She was sitting in a long-chair on the piazza
watching her four charges flit about the lawn. "They are almost young
ladies now, and how pretty they are, too; each is so different from the
other and each charming in her own way. Billie, I think, is too much of a
tomboy to worry about yet. Elinor is far too dignified; Mary is too shy.
But I feel I shall have to keep a sharp eye on Nancy. Those blue eyes of
hers are simply wells of coquetry. I believe the child would flirt with a
stone. I doubt if half the time she realizes herself how eloquent she can
make them. Little mischief!"

The little lady smiled indulgently, recalling her own blue eyes and the
mischief they had been known to stir up.

"And now this Widow from Shanghai comes and breaks in on us," her
thoughts proceeded irrelevantly. "I don't in the least wish to cultivate
her friendship, but I know her kind. Once she gets her foot in the door
there'll be no shaking her off."

As a matter of fact, Miss Helen Campbell, spinster, was never very
enthusiastic about widows.

"I don't care for them," she used to say. "They are a knowing, designing
lot."

Once when she was asked by a missionary society in West Haven to
contribute to a fund for the widows in India, to induce them not to mount
their husbands' funeral pyres and permit themselves to be consumed by
mortuary flames, Miss Campbell indignantly refused.

"I am sure, if they are so foolish, that's much the best place for them,"
she announced. "I prefer to give my money for more worthy causes."

And now a widow, who, far from having mounted any funeral pyre, appeared
to enjoy life immensely, had placed them under obligations.

"She is a slant-eyed widow with a yellow skin," Miss Campbell thought
uncharitably, "and her hair that ought to be dark is light. Of course
that isn't her fault and neither is her peculiar complexion nor her slant
eyes, but I do wish she were one thing or the other and not half and
half."

Of course all these inhospitable and unfriendly notions the little lady
was careful to keep to herself. When presently the Widow of Shanghai
rode up in a 'riksha and was helped to alight by three maids at once,
Miss Campbell was all graciousness and affability.

Mme. Fontaine wore a beautiful white embroidered crêpe dinner dress. Her
figure was so slender Miss Campbell feared it might sway and bend with
the least breath of wind. Her curious fluffy hair was arranged on top of
her head and her only ornament was a string of small pearls wound twice
around her throat. They were very beautiful pearls, each one perfect to
the casual eye.

"But then, who can tell the real from the unreal nowadays," thought Miss
Campbell, regarding the jewels critically. "They might be imitation,
every one of them."

"Reggie" Carlton, as he came to be known to the girls, and Nicholas Grimm
soon followed the widow, and after them came Mr. Buxton. Yoritomo could
not appear that evening, because of the celebration in his own home where
he must remain and share in the family feast.

Mme. Fontaine was reserved almost to the point of shyness with the four
men of the party, whom she now met for the first time. But she drew the
girls around her by a kind of irresistible attraction. Billie found
herself talking as freely as she talked with her three friends. The widow
had a curiously sympathetic way of listening that provoked confidences.
There was a good deal of friendly rivalry among the Motor Maids for her
society. They took turns sitting by her side during the half hour before
dinner was announced; but Nancy felt a certain superiority over the
others. Was she not bound by a secret tie to this fascinating person
because of their chance meeting in the garden in the rain?

"These four girls of mine seem to have acquired a monopoly over you, Mme.
Fontaine," observed Mr. Campbell, just returned from a short conference
with Mr. Buxton in the library. "They don't give the rest of us half a
chance. They have fenced you around as if you were a sacred image of
Buddha."

"I feel that they have paid me a great compliment," answered the widow,
smiling, "To a lonely woman the friendship of four charming young girls
is very sweet."

Mr. Campbell somehow felt extremely sorry for this lonely lady. Mr.
Buxton also was touched with commiseration, and the younger men, too,
were moved to cast glances of sympathy in her direction.

For the first time in her life Miss Campbell experienced the same
sensation a young girl feels when she is left sitting against the wall at
a dance while her friends are being whirled about. At first she thought
the sensation was a touch of indigestion which frequently brings with it,
its near relative, depression. But when the circle closed in around the
Widow of Shanghai, and Helen Campbell, spinster, of America, was left
sitting quite alone to contemplate the view, she decided that it was not
indigestion nor any of its ramifications that ailed her. What the
sensation was she could not name, but she felt a profound and entirely
human irritation with the Widow of Shanghai and her ingratiating methods.

Fortunately dinner was announced and on the arm of Mr. Buxton she led the
way to the dining room with the air of an exiled queen.

Billie was very anxious about the success of her father's birthday
dinner. She had herself assisted in decorating the table, and had
insisted on placing a crystal bowl of goldfish in the center, although
O'Haru had told her that goldfish were not carp, and therefore had no
significance whatever with the day.

However, Onoye had caught the idea at once and had carried it out
charmingly. Hiding behind the screen, where she could see without being
seen, her heart warmed with joy when she heard the exclamations of the
guests. The center of the table was arranged to resemble a little lake.
The shallow bowl of goldfish was placed on a flat round mirror, on the
edge of which nodded groups of iris and their sword-like leaves planted
in shallow green dishes; pebbles and water grasses hid the perforations
which held them in place. Two little boats sailed on the lake, and at one
side was a miniature grotto formed of rocks and moss, and spanned by a
little bridge.

"Isn't it cunning?" asked Billie proudly, "and isn't Onoye clever to have
carried out the scheme so perfectly?"

"She is, indeed," assented Miss Campbell, feeling suddenly glad to praise
some one to counteract the unusual sensations that had possessed her a
moment before.

"It is a part of every Japanese girl's education to learn the art of
arranging flowers," said Mme. Fontaine. "She is taught that, just as
girls in other countries are taught music and languages. It often takes
several hours to arrange a group of flowers. The object is, you see, to
make them look as natural as possible in the vase."

"It is a pretty accomplishment," said Miss Campbell, "but I doubt if any
American girl would have the patience to learn it. Can you imagine,
Billie, spending two hours arranging three lilies in a bowl to make them
look as if they had grown there?"

"No, I can't," laughed Billie, "but I have spent two hours many times on
my back under the 'Comet' trying to find a loose screw."

"If I had a wife--" here Nicholas remarked and paused because everybody
laughed.

"Well, if you had one, what would you do with her? Beat her?" asked Mr.
Buxton.

"Do I look like a wife beater?" demanded Nicholas indignantly. "No. I was
going to say I'd rather she would know about loose screws in machinery
than how to arrange flowers."

"You speak as if marriage was one long motor trip, my boy," observed Mr.
Campbell.

"And, surely," put in Miss Campbell, "if the machinery broke down, you
wouldn't compel your wife to repair it?"

"I am afraid very few girls would be eligible for your wife, Mr. Grimm,"
remarked Mme. Fontaine.

As for Billie, she said nothing at all, but glanced down at her plate,
because Nicholas looked straight at her and then burst out with:

"Don't jump on me, everybody, with both feet. I only meant that it's a
jolly fine girl who can--er--who--knows--"

He broke down in confusion.

"You mean that a young lady chauffeur would make an excellent wife?"
laughed Mr. Campbell.

"Spare his blushes," put in Reggie, and then the talk shifted to other
subjects.

It is customary in Japan on the day of the Boys' Festival to tell stories
of the heroes of the country, and after dinner when they had gathered in
the lantern-hung summer-house for coffee, Mme. Fontaine, urged by the
girls, recounted an incident in the life of Yamato, or O'Osu, as he was
then known. He was the son of the Emperor Keiko, and when a mere slip of
a boy was sent by his father to slay two fierce robbers who had been
spreading terror through the country. O'Osu gladly undertook the affair
and since the outlaws were giants and he just a boy, he devised a cunning
scheme to outwit the terrible brigands. He was slender and small and his
hair still long, so that in the gorgeous clothes of a dancing girl no one
would ever have guessed he was a brave and reckless young prince.

One night when the robbers were feasting in their cave after pillaging
the country for miles around, the beautiful dancing girl appeared before
them like a vision. She charmed them with her songs and dances and then
suddenly she whipped out a sharp sword and slew the nearest robber. As
the other fled terror-stricken to the entrance of the cave, she thrust
him in the back and he fell to the ground.

"'Pause, oh Prince, for prince thou surely art,' he gasped. 'But why hast
thou done this deed?'

"And the prince, standing over him with the dripping sword, said:

"'I am O'Osu, messenger of the Emperor and avenger of evil.'

"'Then,' said the dying robber, 'thou shalt have a new name. Until this
hour my brother and I have been called the bravest men in the West. To
thee, august boy, I bequeath the title. Let men call thee the bravest in
Yamato.'

"From that day O'Osu was called 'Yamato Take,' and never did he wrong the
name."

Mary sighed when Mme. Fontaine had finished the story. She yearned for
the gift of language and the power to chain the attention of a circle of
people. How had she done it, this mysterious foreigner who could handle
the English language even better than English people? Her words were
simple and gestures she used almost none. It was her voice, Mary thought.
There was an undercurrent of dramatic power in it, like a subterranean
river. It could only be guessed at, but it was there, powerful and deep.
Even Miss Campbell, unreasonably prejudiced, felt the undercurrent.

"That is a charming story," she observed. "I suppose Ja