The Breath of the Gods. Sidney McCall

along the stone dyke had not changed a leaf. Those long, waiting rows of empty jinrikishas might hold one that had been waiting for her through an hour of shopping in the foreign stores of Yokohama. And, oh, the dear welcoming friends there on the steps!

      Their party was the first to cross the platform of the lowered flight of stairs. Yuki touched the first stone step, and gazed eagerly above her. Yes, that was her mother, that gentlest, sweetest, most beautiful face among them all! Behind her stood Onda Tetsujo, Yuki's father, with his plain blue robes, and gray, nobly poised head.

      "Mother! Okkasan—Shibaraku!" (How long the absence!) cried the girl, with a broken note of rapture in her voice. Bounding up the steps, she clasped and was clasped again by the slender gray figure. Tetsujo drew back, a fleeting look of perplexity in his face. He had not recognized Yuki, thus seen, for the first time, in her perfectly adapted foreign garments; but Iriya had known, from the moment her eyes caught the small brown-clad figure at the rail. The mother in her swept away, for the instant, high barriers of Japanese etiquette. She clung to her child, fondling her, pressing trembling lips to the soft young cheeks, and murmuring, "My baby—my little one—my treasure, who has come back to me!"

      A moment later they had drawn apart, both with wet eyes and quivering lips, and small, bashful side-looks of love; for such public demonstration is practically unknown among samurai women. Already these two were a little ashamed of it. Tetsujo realized at last that it was his daughter, but, because of her strange conduct, wore still an uncomprehending wrinkle between his heavy brows.

      The Todd party, Pierre and Mr. T. Caraway Dodge included, came hesitatingly near. The Japanese crowd drew back, some in distaste, some in politeness, some because their own friends had arrived, and there was no longer a reason for staying. Yuki, with a hand on Gwendolen's arm, began the introductions. When it came to the two young men, she hesitated slightly. Her father's deep, keen eyes rested on the faces first of one, then of the other. The two names, as she hurried them over, were practically unintelligible.

      Kind-hearted Mrs. Todd, observing Yuki's embarrassment and feeling that she had at least a hint as to its cause, rushed gallantly into the breech. Her efforts centred on shrinking Mrs. Onda. "Are you really Yuki's mother?" she demanded in a loud, playful voice. "You look to me like her sister. I wouldn't believe, unless I were told, that you had more than five years between you."

      Yuki threw a glance of gratitude toward the speaker. "Mother, Mrs. Todd says that you appear augustly young to be indeed the daughter of a big girl like me."

      Iriya flushed and bowed, looking more than ever like her daughter. She answered in Japanese, "Please honorably to thank the lady for her compliment, but acquaint her with the fact that I am already lamentably old. On my next birthday I shall be thirty-nine."

      Tetsujo, having accomplished his share of stiff bows—not forgetting an extra one for the new American minister—said to his daughter, "My child, we are indeed happy to welcome you. Now thank your good friends in my name. Suitable presents shall be sent them. We must depart for Yedo." He moved one finger toward three waiting jinrikisha men near-by, and the vehicles, like magic, stood beside him.

      "Now, already it must be 'Sayonara.' My father desires me to go," said Yuki, and smiled a little tremulously from one foreign face to another. These farewells at the end of a long and pleasant journey are never careless things to say. "Of course I will see all—every one—very soon!"

      "Yuki! Why, we never thought of this. You mustn't leave us so!" cried Gwendolen, in consternation.

      "No!" added Pierre, with more vehemence. "It isn't to be thought of. Tell your father that we are counting on you for the day." He stepped close to her. Yuki instinctively shrank. The puzzled look came again to the face of Tetsujo.

      "Be careful, Pierre! Look at his face! You will make a false move at the start," came Gwendolen's whisper.

      "Do you expect me to stand here patiently and see her carried away? Non! Mon Dieu, it was to have been the consecrating day of our lives! I do not give it up. I will try speaking myself with her father."

      "Gwendolen is right. Do not speak!" panted Yuki.

      But Pierre was not one to relinquish bliss so easily. No move seemed to him quite as undesirable as the one about to take place. Facing the astonished samurai, he began a series of bows which he fondly conceived to embody the finer points of both French and Japanese etiquette.

      "Monsieur Onda—Onda San," he commenced eagerly, "Miss Yuki must not go. Ikimasen! Stay here with friends—tomodachi. She can go your house—afternoon. Please do not take her now."

      Onda looked blankly and in silence upon the antics of the strange creature. Not one gleam of comprehension enlivened his fixed gaze.

      "Here, man, let me get to him," said Dodge, thrusting himself in front of Pierre. "I'll translate what you are trying to say, though it isn't a particle of use. Shall I go on?"

      "Merci."

      Speaking slowly, in fairly good Japanese, Dodge said, "We having hoped to enjoy the company of your daughter on this first day of landing, I am requested to entreat your august permission to allow her to remain. If you and your wife will join our party also, we shall feel honored by your condescension." "Never told a bigger lie in my life!" was his mental note after this last remark.

      Tetsujo replied by the courtesy of a stiff bow. With no further glance or word for the speaker, he stepped up into his jinrikisha, and once seated, said to Yuki, "Reply to the speech of the foreigner, my child."

      "I am to go with my parents, of course," said Yuki, nervously. "I wish it. I did not know you were planning so sure for me to remain. I must go now, at once, but will see you as soon as I may, to-morrow, or perhaps this very afternoon."

      Iriya had bowed to the foreigners and entered her jinrikisha immediately after Tetsujo. Yuki now climbed into the remaining one, neither Dodge nor Pierre retaining enough self-possession to assist her. The three coolies caught up the shafts for starting.

      "Here, stop, stop!" cried Gwendolen, springing forward. "Yuki, we don't even know your Tokio address!"

      Tetsujo gave a gesture and a "cluck." The coolies sprang into action.

      "Ko-ishikawa, Kobinata, Shi—jū—" trailed off Yuki's voice into the rattling of the streets.

      "The ogre! I'll catch the next train for Tokio," cried Pierre.

      "Better stay with us and see about your baggage, Pierre," said Mr. Todd, speaking for the first time. "The girl should go with her people, and you know it."

      "But, poor boy," said Mrs. Todd, soothingly, her hand touching his arm, "I know how he has counted on seeing the sights with Yuki."

      Onda Tetsujo's spoken order had been "stenshun!" (station), for so have the Japanese incorporated our familiar word. A train was just leaving for Yedo. Three second-class tickets were bought, and the kuruma-men overpaid and dismissed. Had they been merely "paid," a later train would have been taken.

      The short encounter on the Yokohama pier evidently remained in the master's mind as a most disagreeable impression. While in no sense a stupid man, the quality of Onda's intellect was torpid rather than alert. Things came to him slowly, and remained long.

      It happened that their train was a "local," stopping at all the small intermediate stations. Between Yokohama and the next stop—Kanagawa—not a word was spoken. Yuki felt bewildered, dazed, distressed. What had happened? What was spoiling her home-coming? The promise was not all, for here were her parents, moody and ill at ease, and they as yet knew nothing of her pledge. Surely the few injudicious words Pierre tried to speak should not have wrought all this. Poor Pierre, with his hurt blue eyes and outstretched hand of longing! Well, the American girls used to say that true love never did run smooth. Here she gave a sigh so deep that Iriya started. All three gazed heavily from the windows, only half seeing the villages sweep past, and the wide, gleaming rice-fields in their winter flood, and the long edge of Yedo Bay set with pines, and flecked with shining sails. The gaudy fluttering of small banners above the tea booths of Kawasaki brought