nion, regretting that she had
spoken sarcastically. "I forget that I once had such ideas also.
We'll talk some more about it after while. You are nervous and
worried now and must have more rest."

The next day Madame Oshima more tactfully approached the subject and
showed her protege that while in Rome it was more modest to do as
the Romans do; and that, moreover, it was necessary for her own good
and theirs that she attract as little attention as possible, and to
those that recognized her Caucasian blood appear, superficially, at
least, as a naturalized citizen of Japan.

So, amid blushes and tears, protestations and laughter, Ethel
accepted the kimo, or one-piece Japanese garment, and the outer
flowing cloak to be worn on state occasions when freedom of bodily
movement was not required. Her feather-adorned hat was discarded
altogether and her ill-shapen high-heeled boots replaced by airy
slippers of braided fiber.

Her rather short stature and her hair--which fortunately enough was
black--served to lessen her conspicuousness, especially when dressed
in the fashion followed by Japanese girls; and with the leaving off
of the use of cosmetics and the spending of several hours a day in
the flower garden even her pallid complexion suffered rapid change.

It was about a fortnight before Professor Oshima returned from
Tokio. Upon his arrival Ethel at once pleaded with him to be sent to
America, but the scientist slowly shook his head.

"It is too late," he said; "there is going to be a war."

Thus it happened that Ethel Calvert was retained in the Professor's
family as a sort of English tutor to his children, and introduced as
a relative of his wife, and no one suspected that she was one of the
hated Americans.

* * *

The trouble between Japan and the United States dated back to the
early part of the century. It was deep-seated and bitter, and was
not only the culmination of a rivalry between the leading nations of
the great races of mankind, but a rivalry between two great ideas or
policies that grew out in opposite directions from the age of
unprecedented mechanical and scientific progress that marked the
dawn of the twentieth century.

The pages of history had been turned rapidly in those years. The
United States, long known as the richest country, had also become
the most populous nation of the Caucasian world--and wealth and
population had made her vain.

But with all her material glor