orite expression of Miss
Gray's, the meaning of which she never made quite clear to me, that day
it sounded like the melancholy mutterings of hunger. For scattering
vapors of pessimism, and stirring up symptoms of hope, I'd pin my faith
to a bowl of thick hot soup before I would a book full of sermons.

Without further argument I called to some coolies to come with a "kago,"
a kind of lie-down-sit-up basket swung from a pole, and in it we laid
the weak, protesting woman.

The men lifted it to their shoulders and the little procession, guarded
fore and aft by a policeman, moved through the sinister shadows of
Flying Sparrow street to the clearer heights of "The House of the Misty
Star."

Long training had strengthened, and association had verified my
unshakable belief that the most essential quality of the very high
calling of a missionary, is an unlimited supply of consecrated
commonsense. So far, not a vestige of it had I discovered in the devotee
I was taking to my home, but Jane Gray was as full of surprises as
she was of sentiment.

[Illustration: Through the sinister shadows of Flying Sparrow Street]

She not only stayed in my house, but with her coming the spell of
changeless days was broken. It was as if her thin hand held the charm by
which my door of opportunity was flung wide, and through it I saw my
garden of dreams bursting into flower.

II

KISHIMOTO SAN CALLS

I had always been dead set against taking a companion permanently into
my home. For one reason I heeded the warning of the man who made the
Japanese language. To denote "peace" he drew a picture of a roof with a
woman under it. Evidently being a gentleman of experience, he expressed
the word "trouble" by adding another person of the same sex to the
picture without changing the size of the roof.

Then, too, there was my cash account to settle with. Ever since I'd been
drawing a salary from the National Education Board of Missions, I felt
like apologizing to the few feeble figures that stared accusingly at me
from my small ledger, for the demands I made upon them for charity, for
sickness, and for entertainment of all who knocked at my door.

My classes were always crowded, but there were times when the purses of
my students were more lean than their bodies. Frequently such an one
looked at me and said, "Moneys have all flewed away from my pockets.
Only have vast consuming fire for learning." It being against my
principle to see an