Tsune had not always been so averse to the idea of matrimony. She had once been engaged, by her own free consenting will, to a handsome young art-dealer, who apparently had an eye for art by his own fireside, or, more correctly speaking, fire pot. But, alas! when is there not the "conspiring circumstance" against the course of true love? It was rumoured that the lover was descended from the shunned Eta class; and quickly and sternly was the prospective match broken off by Suzuki. Poor little Tsune! race-prejudice and filial duty proved too strong a combination for the love of a simple maiden's heart. He, the faithless, handsome one, speedily consoled himself with another maiden of inferior beauty, 'twas said, but of less exacting family. But none the less bravely had little Tsune embraced the idea of a life of renunciation and work.

A score of solutions occurred to the O Jo-san's fertile imagination; only to be rejected, upon investigation, as unfeasible.

They were sitting one evening beside Robert's study table: he, reading; his sister, with some piece of needle - workan occupation of which she was none too fond - when suddenly the right inspiration flashed into her mind. The very thing!

"Robert," said the O Jo-san, as demurely as a cat approaching a saucer of cream. "Yes, dear," looking up absently.

"Wasn't it stupid of me to have brought out from home that great cumbersome sewingmachine, which I never touch? For it would be ridiculous of me to waste my time sewing, when one can have it done in this country for almost nothing, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, no doubt," agreed Robert.

"I've been thinking, Robert," somewhat hastily, perceiving her brother's eye wandering back to the printed page, "what a perfectly lovely thing it would be to give to some one who really needed it, that machine."

"But who needs it, dear?" said Robert patiently. "The same rule that holds good for you would apply equally to our friends."

"Oh, yes, E-jin like ourselves! But, Robert, I was thinking of some one else; some one to whom that machine would mean everything Tsune!" she wound up triumphantly.

Robert was certainly a dear. He listened with the utmost patience, and eventual acquiescence, to the elaboration of his sister's scheme, which was briefly this: to put Tsune into an establishment of her own, with an equipment for foreign dressmaking, by which she could earn an independent living.

There were naturally many sodans (discussions) before Suzuki was finally won over to the plan. But at length the airy conception of the O Jo-san's brain stood one day a substantial reality. No

Jingu of having conquered Corea, than was she at having, for the nonce, overturned the tables of the law, and established a precedent for the single-blessedness of one Japanese woman at least, and her right to live independently.

A tiny, perfectly new, whitematted bird cage of a house had been leased for the enormous sum of five yen (10s.) a - month, the rent of which Robert, himself, paid six months in advance.

As an interior it was the smallest and daintiest affair

ever constructed, even in Japan. A twenty-foot cube would have enclosed with ease its five rooms, two storeys, and garden. But not a roof of a thousand tiles could have held such a shining splendour of contentment as blossomed in the heart of its one small inmate. If ever the transfiguration of the pride of possession was beheld, it was in the person of Tsune, when Robert and the O Jo-san came, on the day of her installation, to offer the customary yoroshiku (congratulations) of eggs, rice straw, and noshi paper.

The domestic lares and penates were already in evidence in the form of the shelf of the gods, hibachi, and teakettle; all other furnishings having miraculously disappeared within sliding recesses and mysterious vanishing places in the walls.

Not so the machine! Central, resplendent, striking the eye of the beholder and filling

by reason of its enormity of offence against every æsthetic canon of Japanese art and life, stood that American monstrosity-more woodeny, more glittering with devices of steel and wrought iron and suggestions of the mechanical "readymade than ever surely was machine before. The O Jo-san devoutly hoped that Tsune would not, through force of association, take to turning out her toes, sitting in chairs, and wearing machine - made garments, even of her own manufacture.

"Nikai, dozo!" (Upstairs, if you please!) invited that smiling damsel. And upstairs her visitors followed, at the risk of their necks, upon a narrow, frail, bannisterless precipitation, called by courtesy a stairway.

But, once there, they had a charming opera - glass view of the little crowded thoroughfare beneath, and of the harmonious lines and intersections of the blue-tiled roofs opposite. Then must they be conducted to the garden: that is to say, to a coign of vantage whence the garden might be viewed; for, unlike Topsy, it was made, not "growed"; and it was not made to be entered by the clumsy foot of a foreigner. It occupied but a few square feet. But it contained within its narrow space a marvellous old dwarfed pine

-a veritable gnome of a tree, a giant peony in bloom, an impressive rock, rock, a winding pebbly stream (of white sand), and a mysterious illusion of perspective, by which the

Near a small doorway that opened out upon this vista sat a smaller handmaiden, engaged in chopping some queer little vegetable in a queer little bowl, by way of preparation for Tsune's evening meal; and looking, with that Oriental fixity of countenance, as if she had been doing nothing from the beginning of time but sitting in that identical spot, chopping that identical vegetable. Although hospitably urged to remain and partake of the ultimate "eventuation of this edible, their presence already filled to overflowing the small domicile; and on perceiving the tall, blue-robed form of Suzuki appearing in the near distance, Robert and his sister considered it wise to effect a clearance, in order that he, like themselves, might have his first view of the pièce de résistance unobstructed by the presence of guests.

Throughout ensuing weeks and months the little menage prospered. Interested foreigners sent Tsune plain sewing to do, and neighbouring Japanese tailors occasionally shared with her an overflow of work. The subject of marriage had been tacitly dropped, even by Suzuki. And all that summer pretty Tsune was as happy and industrious as the trilling green cicada that hung in a tiny bamboo cage on her door-post and sent forth its ceaseless rill of sound,

Many pleasant mornings did the two girls spend together in the tiny little house. Some

Tsune to sew, and sometimes they talked, in such halting medium as their mutual knowledge of English and Japanese allowed; and always they quaffed innumerable cups of pale-green, fragrant O-cha,the necessary adjunct to any function whatsoever, even the simple one of sewing a seam. On one of these occasions:

"Tsune, was he very disagreeable, the man your father wished you to marry?"

"Shirimasen (I do not know), answered Tsune serenely, "I have never seen him."

"Then how do you know whether you would like to marry him or not?" questioned the O Jo-san in surprise.

"The heart knows," replied Tsune simply.

"How?" curiously.

"If, when the honourable parent speaks the word of marriage,' said Tsune haltingly, "the heart is confused, but not sad, then a Danna-san [honourable master] is not unwelcome; but if, when such word is spoken, the heart becomes very sad, so that the tears are like too-heavy dew on the thoughts at night-time, then it would be a pitiful thing to marry."

The O Jo-san was silent, pondering these words, which seemed to her to throw a referent light upon some of the mysteries of Japanese life and women. These docile creatures, trained from the cradle to smiling self-immolation, were their smiles and sparkles but the crest of a bitter brine? Had Nature herself entered

into league with this heroic deception, bidding the foliage through all the day gather up silently the sighs of women, to breathe them forth again upon the night air? Did the heartstricken cry of the night-bird voice the the anguish of love repressed? And were the many-tinted days poured from the rosy goblet of the great red Japanese sun merely beautiful deceptive exhalations to be condensed at nightfall into the tears that form a too-heavy dew upon the thoughts?

Thus the O Jo-san. But Robert only smiled at her romantic fancies, when she spoke of them. And, indeed, an anxiety closer home was pressing upon them both in these days. The Japanese climate was exacting its heavy toll from the too-conscientious student and worker. The doctor's orders were peremptory, when finally Robert was prevailed upon to consult him. He must go home, for a year at least, to a more bracing atmosphere. The nervous system was depressed, the whole physical system out of gear. They both hated the thought of leaving their dear Japan; but the decision once made, it became evident that it was the only wise one.

and eternal transition of souls, Tsune, in her simple grace and beauty, was a not unfitting representative.

"The O Jo-san will perhaps not care for this small gift— it is very ugly and worthless," said Tsune bashfully, drawing from the folds of her obi a tiny, hand painted, silken affair, much resembling a child's cardcase in shape and size. On the inside it was stained a wonderful greenish colour.

"It is for the lips," explained Tsune; and she demonstrated that by moistening the tip of the finger, and touching the glaze, it turned a brilliant scarlet like the vivid mockery of a Geisha's lip.

"But yes," the O Jo-san assured her, it was the one thing needful to complete her Japanese costume.

"O Jo-san, sayonara?" said Tsune finally, in the soft minor timbre the O Jo-san had come to know so well.

"Sayonara, Tsune," she answered, holding her little hand tightly. Then, with sudden impulse, the O Jo-san leaned down and kissed warmly the pretty, uncaressed cheek.

"O Jo-san, sayonara!" murmured Tsune brokenly. And swiftly lifting her arm, so that the long sleeve covered her face, she turned away and was lost to view.

Three years passed before the O Jo-san revisited Japan. And then she returned alone.

But,

and its joyous inmate could she find. The narrow little streets, one so like another, in that congested part of Tokyo, were all teeming with bustling activity. The roof-tiles of the tiny shops-porcelain, umbrella, bird, and food shopscrowded and jostled one another as of yore. But the one little house sought for eluded detection. More than once the O Jo-san stopped the kuruma at sight of a graceful head drooping with wonderful hieroglyphics of hair; but a closer view revealed other features than the rounded ones of Tsune. In vain she questioned shopkeepers and the district police officer, endeavouring to find the present habitation even of Suzuki and his family. They had moved out of the neighbourhood, and were as effectually lost as if they had moved into another province. The O Jo-san gave up the search in person thereafter, and engaged a professional "mouser to try and trace their whereabouts.

For many weeks she heard nothing, and had about given up all hope of ever doing so, when one day the "mouser appeared with the following information.

Suzuki, it appeared, had not prospered in worldly affairs after his master left Japan; and as time went on he made more and more urgent demands upon Tsune for money; and again tried to force marriage upon her. So matters progressed, from bad to worse, until suddenly Tsune disappeared. Suzuki repairing as

usual one afternoon to her abode, found only the little maid there, who told him that Tsune had gone away, never to return. She had left her father all her belongings except a few necessary clothes, but she herself had gone far away. To all questionings the little maid replied that she knew nothing. Tsune had given her this message and then had called a kuruma and driven away in the direction of Shimbashi, the railway station. station. Nor had subsequent events thrown any light upon her disappearance. No word had ever been received from her, nor had she since been seen by any one who knew her previously.

It seemed indeed a case of no thoroughfare. The O Josan could not but feel a haunting dread that Tsune, driven by loneliness, unhappiness, and persecution, had perhaps taken a desperate step, and that the far journey meant that one from which no man returneth. And as time went on, bringing no new developments, she came to accept this theory and gradually ceased to think of Tsune, save as one dead.

A year slipped away, -a year of hard but delightful work, of delving in the ancient Japanese classics with her faithful gentle gentle teacher, O Moto-san. Many were the trips made to out-of-the-way places, for the gathering of new material or for the identifying of former scenes of romance and history.

On one such occasion they found themselves arriving at