d by unwonted freedom, how much the
usually reserved women revealed of themselves, their lives, their
trials and desires! But whatever the story, the dominant note was
acceptance of what was, without protest. It may be fatalism, Mate,
but it is indisputable that looking finality in the face had
brought to all of them a quietness of spirit that no longing for
wider fields or personal ambition can disturb.

None of them had known their husbands before marriage. Few had
ever seen them. Many were compelled to live with the difficulties
of an exacting mother-in-law, who had forgotten that she was ever a
young wife.

But above it all there was a cheerful peacefulness; a willingness
of service to the husband and all his demands, a joy in children
and home, that was convincing as to the depth and dignity of
character which can so efface itself for the happiness of others.

One girl, Miss Deserted Lobster Field, was missing. I asked about
her and this is her story. She was quite pretty; when she left
school there was no difficulty in marrying her off. Two months
afterward the young husband left to serve his time in the army.
For some reason the mother-in-law did not "enter into the spirit of
the girl," and without consulting those most concerned, she
divorced her son and sent the girl home. When the soldier-husband
returned, a new wife, whom he had never seen, was waiting for him
at the cottage door.

The sent-home wife was terribly in the way in her father's house,
for by law she belonged neither there nor in any other place. It
is difficult to re-marry these offcasts. Something, however, had
to be done. So dear father took a stroll out into the village, and
being sonless adopted a young boy as the head of his house. A
_yoshi_ this boy is called. Father married the adopted son to the
soldier's wife that was, securely and permanently. A yoshi has no
voice in any family matter and is powerless to get a divorce.

Moral: If in Japan you want to make sure of keeping a husband when
you get him, take a boy to raise, then marry him.

But the wedding of weddings is the one which took place last
summer, by suggestion. The great unseen has lived in America for
two years. The maid makes her home in the school. The groom-to-be
wrote to a friend in Hiroshima: "Find me a wife." The friend wrote
back: "Here she is." Miss Chestnut Tree, the maid, fluttered down
to the court-house, had her name put on the house registe