I amassed some crusts of bread by his hole, and watched humbly for his honourable presence. He did not peep out at all. The bread was not a worthy invitation. I varied it with a fragment of ham. Mr. Squirrel wasn’t void-stomached. I thought he needed something to read. I tore a poem from the wall. I left it by his respectable cavern. Lo! His head sprouted out to pull it in. “Aha, even the squirrel is a poetry devotee, in this hill!” I said in humourous mood. 18th— “MOST BELOVED: “Mamma was flogged with a bamboo rod some hundred times when she was a girl, her exchanging of a word with a boy over the fence being deemed an obscenity. My papa spent his lonely days in a room with Confucious till one night a middleman left him with my mamma as with a dolly. I do believe they never wrote any love letter. “What would they say, I wonder, if they knew that their daughter had taken to Love-Letter Writing as a profession in Amerikey? “You shouldn’t censure my penury in writing, knowing that I am a musume from such a source. “Oscar, are your windows clean? “Every window of my Willow Cottage was washed yesterday. Is there anything more happy to see (your beautiful eyes excepted) than a shiny window? I pressed my cheek to the window mirthfully, when Mr. Poet tried to pinch it from the outside. My dearest, if he had been my very Mr. Ellis! “I made a discovery while I was trimming about the kitchen. “Can you guess what it was? “‘Love-Letter Writer!’ “‘Gift from Heaven!’ I said, trusting it would help me in my composition. “I lit a candle last night. I hid it behind the cover of such a huge bible which I had borrowed for the purpose. I was heedful of two old men who might disturb me, mistaking the light for a sign that something had happened. Poor Mrs. Heine almost cried, she was so pleased to think that I loved the Bible. Do I love it? Oho, ho, ho—— “Bakabakashi, how sad! “The whole bunch of letters wasn’t fit for my taste at all, at all. “I’m sorry that I used up two candles that were all we had in this hill. “So, my darling, my letter has to be woven from my truest heart. “Good morning, my sweet lord! How are you? Have you breakfasted? Did you eat a beefsteak? I dislike a hearty morning eater. My ideal man shouldn’t be given more than a cup of coffee and one trembling leaf of bacon. “Mr. Poet kills a frog every morning. He says that his fancy springs like a pond singer when he tastes it. I should say that his idea bounds too far in his case. “Do you eat frog? “I beseech you not to incline toward it. “What should I do if your thought ran off from me? “Failure of my life! Love is the whole business of woman, you know. “Have you any shirt to mend? “I have been fixing the poet’s. “Pray, express it to me! “Should you ask such a pleasure of any other girl, it would be a fatal mistake for you. Remember, Oscar, that the Japanese girl is a mightily jealous thing! “My sweetheart, I dreamed a dream.