To this room Mrs. Dandridge herself had taken her, presenting to her Haru, whom the bishop's note had brought--a vivid, eager figure from a Japanese fan, who had sunk suddenly prone, every line of her slender form bowed, hands palm-down on the floor and forehead on them, in a ceremonious welcome to the foreign _Ojo-San_. Her mauve _kimono_ was woven with camelias in silver, set off by an _obi_, showing a flight of storks on a blue background and clasped in front with a silver firefly. The heavy jet hair was rolled into wings on either side, and a high puff surmounted her forehead. Thin twin spirals, stiff with pomade, joined at the back like the pinions of a butterfly, and against the blue-black loops lay a bright knot of ribbon. She was now moving about the room with silent padding of light feet in snowy, digitated _tabi_, admiring the gowns which the maid had taken from Barbara's trunks. Occasionally she passed a slim hand up and down a soft wrap with a graceful, purring regard, or held a fleecy boa under her small oval chin and stole a glance in the cheval glass with a little ecstatic quiver of shoulder. Once she paused to look at the lacquer image on the Sendai chest. "Buddha," she said. "Japan man think very good for die-time." "Haru," said Barbara as the maid's busy Japanese fingers went searching for elusive hooks and eyes, "is it true that every Japanese name has a meaning?" "So, _Ojo-San_! That mos' indeed true. All Japan name mean something. 'Haru' mean spring, for because my born that time. Very funny--_né?_" "It is very pretty," said Barbara. "How tha's nize!" was the delighted exclamation. "_Mama-San_ give name. My like name yella-ways for because _mama-San_ no more in this world. My house little lonesome now." "Where is your house, Haru? Near by?" The slender hand, pointed to the wooded height behind the garden. "Jus' there on the street call Prayer-to-the-gods. My house so-o-o small, an' garden 'bout such big." She indicated a space of perhaps six feet square. "Funny!--_né_?" "And who lives there with you?" Haru smiled brilliantly. "Oh, so-o-o many peoples! _Papa-San_, an'--jus' me." "No brother?" She shook her head. "My don' got," she said. "_Papa-San_ very angry for because my jus' girl an' no could be kill in Port Arthur!" She spoke with a smile, but the matter-of-fact words brought suddenly home to Barbara something of the flavor of that passionate loyalty, that hot heroism and debonair contempt of death which has been the theme of a hundred stories. "Do all Japanese feel so, Haru?" she asked. "Would every father be glad to give his son's life for Japan?" The girl looked at her as if she jested. "Of _course_! All Japan man mos' happy if to be kill for our Emperor! Tha's for why better to be man. Girl jus' can stay home an' _wish_!" As the gown's last fastening was slipped into its place, she turned up her lovely oval face with a smiling, sidelong look. [Illustration]