There is nothing more light, more inviting, than Japanese fare. It is like a sweet Summer villa with many a sliding shoji from which you smile into the breeze and sing to the stars. Lightness is my choice. When, I wondered, could I feel at home with American food! My uncle is a Meriken “toow.” He promised to show me a heap of things in America. He is an 1884 Yale graduate. He occupies the marked seat of the chief secretary of the “Nippon Mining Company.” He has procured leave for one year. * * * * * What were the questionable-looking fragments on the plate? Pieces with pock-marks! Cheese was their honourable name. My uncle scared me by saying that some “charming” worms resided in them. Pooh, pooh! They emitted an annoying smell. You have to empty the choicest box of tooth powder after even the slightest intercourse with them. I dare not make their acquaintance—no, not for a thousand yens. I took a few of them in my pocket papers merely as a curiosity. Shall I hang them on the door, so that the pest may not come near to our house? (Even the pest-devils stay away from it, you see.) 4th—The “Belgic” makes one day’s delay. She will leave on the seventh. “Why not one week?” I cried. I pray that I may sleep a few nights longer in my home. I grow sadder, thinking of my departure. My mother shouldn’t come to the Meriken wharf. Her tears may easily stop my American adventure. I and my maid went to our Buddhist monastery. I offered my good-bye to the graves of my grandparents. I decked them with elegant bunches of chrysanthemums. When we turned our steps homeward the snowy-eyebrowed monk—how unearthly he appeared!—begged me not to forget my family’s church while I am in America. “Christians are barbarians. They eat beef at funerals,” he said. His voice was like a chant. The winds brought a gush of melancholy evening prayer from the temple. The tolling of the monastery bell was tragic. “Goun! Goun! Goun!” 5th—A “chin koro” barked after me. The Japanese little doggie doesn’t know better. He has to encounter many a strange thing. The tap of my shoes was a thrill to him. The rustling of my silk skirt—such a volatile sound—sounded an alarm to him. I was hurrying along the road home from uncle’s in Meriken dress. What a new delight I felt to catch the peeping tips of my shoes from under my trailing koshi goromo. I forced my skirt to wave, coveting a more satisfactory glance. Did I look a suspicious character? I was glad, it amused me to think the dog regarded me as a foreign girl. Oh, how I wished to change me into a different style! Change is so pleasing. My imitation was clever. It succeeded. When I entered my house my maid was dismayed and said: “Bikkuri shita! You terrified me. I took you for an ijin from Meriken country.” “Ho, ho! O ho, ho, ho!”