“You amused me, however, when you told how you had pillaged my picture from Mother Schuyler’s room to put in your own, feigning that it needed to be retouched. “Poor Mother Schuyler! “If she knew your secret! “Frankly, I fear that such a gentleman as you does commit forgery always. Have you no consanguinity with a convict? “O such a wretched boy! “The saddest thing about a woman is that she is glad to fall in love with the worthless. “Do I love you? “Give me time to reply to the question! “Everything is tardy with a Japanese. I was educated by slowness; I bow one dozen times before I speak. “O Oscar, you got to think of my side a little bit! “Every girl claims that she has half a population as adorers in her pocket handkerchief. “You are the only one young American I ever met. “If I accept your love, I am afraid one may satirise my destitution. “You’ll write me soon, won’t you? “Yours, M. G. “P.S.—I wish I could show you how charmingly I smoke. I learned the art recently. I tap the cigarette with my middle finger to knock the ashes off. It is delightful to heap a hill of ashes on the table edge. When I puff, finding no word after ‘And—’ the smoke seems to be speaking for me. “But I assure you that I smoked only before my uncle. “I was a pretty naughty girl at home, but I flatter myself that I can easily be classed among the best in this country. “White women behave terribly, you know.” 22nd—I passed the afternoon at Mrs. Consul’s. She gave me her “favourite” discourse on Walt Whitman. I delivered to my uncle what I had learned. “No newness in it. It is what dear John Burroughs or Mr. Stedman said.” He overturned my castle with one blow, and lit his cigar with a victorious air. I was enraged. “Yes, yes, eraiwa! Oriental gentleman knows everything we poor women know,” I said. I sulkily drew away to my room with Mr. Whitman’s fat book, that I borrowed from Mrs. Consul. 23rd—A letter from my father arrived. “O Papa, please don’t! I am tired of such a dirty conference.” I scoffed. I tore the paper into shreds. “What a sullen lady! What did Otto San write? Marriage proposal, I reckon!” my uncle intruded. “Papa threatened me with a list of suitors. He cried, ‘Chance, chance!’ like the gate-man of an ennichi show. Pray grant me for once in my life, Uncle, to say: ‘The marriage lottery go to the dogs!’ How many Jap girls kill themselves from the burden of such a glued union, do you suppose?” “Then, ‘free marriage’?” “Of course!” “It’s very beautiful, Miss Morning Glory.” “Why not?” “You are Japanese, aren’t you?” “Did you ever think I was a Meriken jin?” “Well, then, how did you come to know young men in a country where familiarity with one is regarded as a crime for a girl?” “Things all wrong in Nippon, Uncle!” “I am sorry you were born a Jap.”