CHAPTER IV
For two halcyon months Yuki San lived in a dream. The ample compensation Merrit insisted upon making for the hospitality extended to him more than met the modest needs of the little household, and once again, as in the earlier days, they went on jolly excursions, visited ancient temples, and picnicked under the shadow of the torii. The father and mother always trotted close behind, and Yuki San, vastly pleased with her ability, gaily translated the speeches from one to another. She talked incessantly, laughing over her own mistakes, and growing prettier and more winsome every day.
Merrit was glad to fill his leisure time in such pleasant companionship. Yuki San was the same little bundle of charm he remembered of old, with her innocence untouched, and a heart whose depths had never yet been stirred.
He teased her, and taught her, and played with her, as he would have played with a merry child. Naturally gentle and affectionate, he unconsciously swept Yuki San to the borderland of that golden world where to awaken alone is agony.
One morning, when the heavy mists of the valley lay in masses of pink against the deeper purple of the mountain, and his Highness, the sun, his face flushed from his long climb, was sending his first glances over the sunny peaks of Fuji-yama, Yuki San arose, after a sleepless night, and faced the morning with sorrowful eyes.
"You ve'y lazy, Mister Sun, this morning," she said, shaking a finger at him in reproof; "where you the have been? Why you not come the more early and make light for my busy?"
She tied the long sleeves of her bright kimono out of her way, and twisting a bit of cloth about her head, fell to dusting the shoji and setting the small room in order.
"I must the hurry," she said, as she kept up her brisk dusting. "I make the food so quick as that Robin San steal berry for his babies. To-day him one big, big day, but him no glad day. Merrit San go away." She paused in her work, and a look of pain darkened her eyes, but she shook her head reproachfully.
