bo a thousand years afterwards.
But I guessed right the very first time and Mura San, with a flash
of appreciation at my interest, said that my learning was
remarkable. It was an untruth and he knew that I knew it, but it
was courteous and I looked easy. Then he talked long and
delightfully as only lovers of such things can. At least, it would
have been delightful had I not been so anxious to see Sada alone.
But it was not to be. At least, not then. But mark one for me,
Mate: Uncle was so pleased with my keen and hungry interest in
color prints and my desire to see his collection, that he invited
me to a feast and a dance at the house the next night.

The following evening I could have hugged the person, male or
otherwise, who called my dear host away for a few minutes just
before the feast began.

Sada told me hurriedly that Uncle had insisted on her singing every
night at the tea-house. She had first rebelled, and then flatly
refused, for she did not like the girls. She hated what she saw
and was afraid of the men. Her master was furiously angry; said he
would teach her what obedience meant in this country. He would
marry her off right away and be rid of a girl who thought her
foreign religion gave her a right to disobey her relatives. She
was afraid he would do it, for he had not asked her to go to the
tea-house again. Neither had he permitted her to go out of the
house. Once she was sick with fear, for she knew Uncle had been in
a long consultation with the rich man Hara and he was in such good
humor afterwards. But Hara, she learned, had gone away.

She would _not_ sing at these dinners again, not if Uncle choked
her and what must she do! I saw the man returning but I quickly
whispered, "What about Billy?"

Ah, I knew I was right. The rose in her hair was no pinker than
her cheeks. If Billy could only have seen her then, I would wager
my shoes--and shoes are precious in this country--that her duty to
her mother's people would have to take a back seat.

Before Uncle reached us I whispered, "Keep Billy in your heart,
Sada. Write him. Tell him." And in the same breath I heartily
thanked Uncle for inviting me.

It was a feast, Mate--the most picturesque, uneatable feast I ever
sat on my doubly honorable feet to consume. There were opal-eyed
fish with shaded pink scales, served whole; soft brown eels split
up the back and laid on a bed of green moss; soups, thin and thick;
lotus root and mou