"The garden is a blot, but it is a big blot, and things grow there, thank Heaven! Haven't you ever been to the American Legation at all? Yuki, I have an idea!" "No," Yuki had answered. At the new sparkle of excitement in the fair face she unconsciously sat more erect. "I have an idea!" Gwendolen repeated. "You are now your own mistress. Why can't you drive home with me, and give mother a surprise? Nothing would soften her like that,--the Princess Hagané to call in person!" "Yes, yes, I will do that thing!" cried Yuki, taking fire at once. "How clever you are, Gwendolen! I would sit here mourning for the month and not have such bright idea. I tell you, listen! We will send your jinrikisha off, then you stays to luncheon with me, and after luncheon we takes the pumpkin and some rats and turn them into a great coach with horses, and drive off in splendor, like two little Cinderellas, to your mother's house! Oh, what jolliness! let us go upstairs and remove your hat!" "What!" cried the other, in mock astonishment, "you have an upstairs, and beds for me to fling my wraps upon, and a brush and comb, perhaps, for me to rearrange my locks!" "Come see!" challenged Yuki. They ran off together, Yuki darting up the steps, Gwendolen catching at her flying heels, both laughing, giggling, uttering short shrieks. "Well," panted the American, sitting prone upon the top step, "it seems that life is going to be worth living after all!" CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Except in rare cases the ceremony of marriage among Japanese is still unmodified by foreign innovation. These people prefer to regard it as the most intimate of social functions, a family sacrament, a transition to be made in grave silence, not in the buzz of comment. Congratulations may follow, they never precede, a wedding. In the case of Prince Hagané, his official necessity for a wife appeared significantly enough in the engraved cards of invitation, sent out by hundreds, to announce weekly receptions (beginning with a certain Friday) held by the Prince and Princess Sanétomo Hagané in the residence of the Minister of War. That word "War," printed so smoothly among high-sounding titles, bore little relation to the dark clouds of conflict pouring in about Port Arthur and spreading a sombre pall above Manchuria. Dark, too, was the shadow cast upon the hearts of loyal Nipponese. For a lull had come, a mysterious silence. Explanations were not offered to the people. Dead bodies or fragments of bodies, were still brought home for burial; new troops, by midnight, threaded city streets and crowded the railway stations, bound for the front, yet no sounds of battle came. It was as if a wheel had stopped, throwing out the entire mechanism of a well-ordered campaign. At the Imperial Palace in Tokio conferences were held daily, Hagané, of course, being present. Sometimes Sir Charles Grubb and his American colleague were called.