"Why, o jo san, in my opinion Maru is not worth the honorable rice she puts in her gluttonous mouth," said Suzumé, on a high note of satisfaction. "Yet the kind mistress here, besides food and occasional outworn garments, allows her sixty sen each month for spending. Ah, Kwannon Sama, of divine compassion, will reward our mistress for her kind heart!" Iriya laughed, a merry, low laugh, as young as Yuki's own. "I thank you, Suzumé; but do you realize that the master sits alone in the zashiki, with no tea, no coal, no--"? "D[=o]-mo!" exclaimed the old woman, and scrambled rapidly to her feet. "But I become more and more the fool with age, as a tree gathers lichen. I will attend." "Be at leisure, honorable, ancient relative; I will fetch the tea," said Maru. "No," cried Yuki, suddenly stretching out a hand; "I want to take it just as I used to as a little girl. I think it will please my father. Let me take it, Suzumé San!" Maru paused with round, incredulous eyes. "Arà!" cried old Suzumé, scarcely knowing whether she were the more pleased or astonished. "A fashionable, wonderful young lady, educated in America, with numberless young Japanese noblemen waiting to marry her,--and she wishes to bear the tray like a tea-house musumé! Ma-a-a! How strange! Yet it is a good desire. The mistress's face shines with it. It shows your heart has not changed color, o jo san. I will prepare at once. Come, lazy fatling!" This last remark was of course addressed to Maru. In his wide, dim zashiki, or reception-room,--analogous to the drawing-room of the West,--Tetsujo sat alone. He was glad for a moment of solitude. His mind did not move swiftly on any subject. The bewilderment of his first vision of Yuki, changed from a clinging Japanese child to an alert, self-possessed American, had not altogether passed. Then that bobbing, blue-eyed he-creature on the hatoba,--he had given sour food for thought. What language was it that the thing had tried to speak, what wish to utter? Well, at least Yuki was safe now among her home people, away from the influence of all such mountebanks. In a few days she would be wishing to don again her Japanese dress, and then he could begin to believe he had a child.