But she shook her head over this and tried again:
"You have the welcome of my heart. Yuki."
This, too, fell short of her ideal, so she decided to send simply two words of which she was quite sure:
"Please come."
The days that followed were crowded with busy preparation. The difficulty of providing the ease and comfort that the presence of so honorable a guest demanded taxed to the utmost Yuki San's resourceful nature. Gaily she set her wits and fingers to work—placing a heavy brass hibachi over a black scorch in the matting, fitting new rice- paper into the small wooden squares of the shoji, and hanging kakemono over the ugly holes made by the missing plaster in the wall.
From one part of the house to another she flitted, laughing and working, while the old garden echoed her happiness and overflowed with blossom and song.
On the day of Merrit's expected arrival, when the last flower had been put in the vases, and the last speck of dust flecked from the matting, Yuki San's keen eyes detected a torn place in the paper door which separated the guest-chamber from the narrow hall.
A puzzled little frown drew her black brows together, but it soon fled before her smile.
"Ah!" she cried, "idea come quickly! I write picture of bamboo on teared place."
With paint and brush she fell to work, and beneath her skilful fingers the ugly tear disappeared in a forest of slender take which stretched away to the foot of a snow-capped mountain.