She remembered that in other days, when banquets were given in her father's house, and dancers served the wine, a free geisha named Kimika had often caressed her. She went straight to the house of Kimika. "I want you to buy me," said Ai;--"and I want a great deal of money." Kimika laughed, and petted her, and made her eat, and heard her story--which was bravely told, without one tear. "My child," said Kimika, "I cannot give you a great deal of money; for I have very little. But this I can do:--I can promise to support your mother. That will be better than to give her much money for you--because your mother, my child, has been a great lady, and therefore cannot know how to use money cunningly. Ask your honored mother to sign the bond--promising that you will stay with me till you are twenty-four years old, or until such time as you can pay me back. And what money I can now spare, take home with you as a free gift." Thus Ai became a geisha; and Kimika renamed her Kimiko, and kept the pledge to maintain the mother and the child-sister. The mother died before Kimiko became famous; the little sister was put to school. Afterwards those things already told came to pass. The young man who had wanted to die for love of a dancing-girl was worthy of better things. He was an only son; and his parents, wealthy and titled people, were willing to make any sacrifice for him--even that of accepting a geisha for daughter-in-law. Moreover, they were not altogether displeased with Kimiko, because of her sympathy for their boy. Before going away, Kimiko attended the wedding of her young sister, Umé, who had just finished school. She was good and pretty. Kimiko had made the match, and used her wicked knowledge of men in making it. She chose a very plain, honest, old-fashioned merchant--a man who could not have been bad, even if he tried. Umé did not question the wisdom of her sister's choice, which time proved fortunate. IV It was in the period of the fourth moon that Kimiko was carried away to the home prepared for her--a place in which to forget all the unpleasant realities of life--a sort of fairy-palace lost in the charmed repose of great shadowy silent high-walled gardens. Therein she might have felt as one reborn, by reason of good deeds, into the realm of Horai. But the spring passed, and the summer came--and Kimiko remained simply Kimiko. Three times she had contrived, for reasons unspoken, to put off the wedding-day.