shipers moved
swiftly about, as delighted as children in the shadow-pictures made
by the twinkling lights, eagerly seeking out remote spots that no
grave might be without its welcoming gleam. A long line of
white-robed dancing girls came swaying by with clapping hands to
soft-voiced chanting.

I, too, though an alien, was moved with the good-will and kindness
that sung through the very air and fearlessly I would have
decorated any festive ghost that happened along. I looked to see
where I might lay the offering I held in my hand. My hostess
plucked my sleeve and pointed to a tiny tombstone under a camellia
tree. I went closer and read the English inscription, "Dorothy
Dale. Aged 2 years." There was a tradition that once in the long
ago a missionary and his wife lived in the village. Through an
awful epidemic of cholera they stuck to their posts, nursed and
cared for the people. Their only child was the price they paid for
their constancy. To each generation the story had been told, and
through all the years faithful watch had been kept over the little
enclosure. Now it was all a-glimmer with lanterns shaped like
birds and butterflies. I added my small offering and turned
hotelwards reluctantly.

My ancient host and hostess trotted along near by, eager to share
all their pathetic little gaieties with me. Their lives together
had about as much real comradeship as a small brown hen and a big
gray owl, and they had been married sixty years! They had toiled
and grown old together, but that did not mean that wifey was to
walk anywhere but three feet to the rear, nor to speak except when
her lord and ruler stopped talking to take a whiff of his pipe. I
tried to walk behind with the old lady but she threatened to stand
in one spot for the rest of the night. Then I vainly coaxed her to
walk with me at her husband's side. But her face was so full of
genuine horror at such disrespect that I desisted. Think, Mate, of
trying to puzzle out the make-up of a nation which for the sake of
a long-ago kindness will for years keep a strange baby's grave
green and yet whose laws will divorce a woman for disobedience to
her husband's mother and where the ancient custom of "women to
heel" still holds good.

And this is the land where the Seeker came for the truth!

Sada thinks it paradise and I, as before, am sending to Jack

A heart of love for thee
Blown by the summer breezes
Ten thousand miles of sea.