"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Jack, "I am no taller than Nan."
"Well, they didn't ask her."
"That is all nonsense," replied Jack. "I suppose the real reason is that Jean flocked with her more than I did, and once I laughed at her for some funny mistake she made. I suppose I shouldn't have done it for it wasn't very polite, but the laugh came out before I thought."
"Are you going, Jean?" Nan asked.
"I think so. It is quite a compliment, I reckon, and I ought to take advantage of it, though it scares me rather to go in among such exceedingly foreign people. I shall only stay a day or so, however, and I don't reckon anything very terrible can happen in that time."
"So then it is settled, is it, that we go on to Kyoto?" said Nan.
"It will be pretty warm, I suppose, after these delightful mountains," remarked Miss Helen regretfully, "but if we come to Japan in summer we must take the consequences. At all events we can be thankful that the rainy season is over."
"I wonder what Ko-yeda means," said Nan musingly, as she handed back the letter to Jean.
"It means a slender twig," Jean informed her. "Ko-yeda told me so long ago."
"It is very pretty, especially for a young girl," Nan decided.