The four Corners in Japan

by Amy Ella Blanchard

After all it was found that Kyoto would be more easily reached by way of Tokyo than by any other route and in the latter city was made the stay of a night. It brought Mr. Harding post haste to see them all, but, as luck would have it, Nan was laid up with a headache and could not appear. She insisted upon going on the next morning, and so Tokyo brought her no added memories. At the quiet European hotel in Kyoto, Jean met her late schoolfellow and was borne off without delay.

She made a little wry face over her shoulder as she said good-bye to her sisters, but Jack was very envious of her opportunity and bemoaned her luck in not having won Ko-yeda's regard. "It doesn't make it any better to tell me it is my own fault," she said to Mary Lee, who reminded her of the fact. "Never mind, I will have some sort of adventure before I leave this town; you see if I don't."

However reluctantly Jean started forth, nothing could have exceeded the gracious welcome she received from the family of Ko-yeda. Mrs. Sannomiya bowed to the floor, likewise did Grandmother Sannomiya, as well as every one else in the establishment. Into a fresh, sweet room covered with mats of rice straw she was ushered, a silken cushion was placed for her and she was at once served with "honorable tea," sweetmeats and cakes. This ceremony over, she was taken to another matted room where, as she told her sisters afterward, she hung up her clothes on the floor and listened to what they were saying in the next room. After this Ko-yeda led her to the front of the house which did not face the street, but the garden, and a charming one it was. Not large, but displaying a tiny grotto, a miniature pond where goldfishes and little turtles lived, and where, at this season, lovely lotus blooms floated. Along the stone paths potted plants were set and in one spot Ko-yeda pointed out with pride a cherry tree which was the garden's glory in spring. It was not a very big place but it was admired and beloved by the whole family from the opening of the first budlet to the falling of the scarlet leaves from a baby maple tree. The verandah of the house overlooked the garden rather than the street.

Ko-yeda's pleasure in her company was boundless. She spoke English well and chattered away asking innumerable questions of this and that one and inquiring all about what Jean had seen in Japan. "You are traveled more than I," she said. "Never to Nikko have I been. I go some of the day. You see I do not mean be as other Japanese girl. I am student of America and I very free in my thinking of what I mean do. My grandmother frown and say I naughty little girl, for that I wish no be like the honorable ancestor. She Christian, too, but she cannot forget the ancestor. For myself, I like better remember my present ones."

"Do you think you will marry, Ko-yeda?" asked Jean.

"I cannot say. I would not like to think. It is not respectable for me here in Japan to do so. In your country it is opposite. You marry some of the day?"

"Oh, dear me, I don't know. You may not believe it, Ko-yeda, and I would not like to confess it to my sisters even, but I have never yet been in love, though I am eighteen."

Ko-yeda laughed merrily. "You should be as I am. Some day when come a good Christian somebodies to my father and mother and say I wish Ko-yeda for my son, then perhaps I think, but I shall wait till that day. I will not marry any but my own countryman, I suppose, and I do not wish other, but I wish Christian."

"Of course you do. Will you have to wait on your mother-in-law, then?"