How we played! In all the flowery kingdom so many foolish people could not have been found in one place. What chaff and banter! What laying aside of cares, responsibilities, and heavy hearts, if there were any, and just being free and young! For a time at least the years fell away from us and we relived all the games and folk-dances we ever knew. True, time had stiffened joints and some of the movements were about as graceful as a pair of fire tongs and I may be dismissed for some of the fancy steps I showed the girls, but they were happy, and far more supple than when we began. When we were breathless we hauled in our old friend the big _hibachi_, with a peck of glowing charcoal right in the middle. We sat on our folded feet and made a big circle all around, with only the glimmer of the coals for a light. Then we talked. Each girl had a story to tell, either of herself or some one we had known together. Over many we laughed. For others the tears started. Warmed by companionship and moved by unwonted freedom, how much the usually reserved women revealed of themselves, their lives, their trials and desires! But whatever the story, the dominant note was acceptance of what was, without protest. It may be fatalism, Mate, but it is indisputable that looking finality in the face had brought to all of them a quietness of spirit that no longing for wider fields or personal ambition can disturb. None of them had known their husbands before marriage. Few had ever seen them. Many were compelled to live with the difficulties of an exacting mother-in-law, who had forgotten that she was ever a young wife. But above it all there was a cheerful peacefulness; a willingness of service to the husband and all his demands, a joy in children and home, that was convincing as to the depth and dignity of character which can so efface itself for the happiness of others. One girl, Miss Deserted Lobster Field, was missing. I asked about her and this is her story. She was quite pretty; when she left school there was no difficulty in marrying her off. Two months afterward the young husband left to serve his time in the army. For some reason the mother-in-law did not "enter into the spirit of the girl," and without consulting those most concerned, she divorced her son and sent the girl home. When the soldier-husband returned, a new wife, whom he had never seen, was waiting for him at the cottage door. The sent-home wife was terribly in the way in her father's house, for by law she belonged neither there nor in any other place. It is difficult to re-marry these offcasts. Something, however, had to be done. So dear father took a stroll out into the village, and being sonless adopted a young boy as the head of his house. A _yoshi_ this boy is called. Father married the adopted son to the soldier's wife that was, securely and permanently. A yoshi has no voice in any family matter and is powerless to get a divorce.