“A hard, dour, just man—a man who could make no allowance for folly.”
“Ay, ay! Had y’ any brithers and sisters?”
“Never a one, and my mother died when I was two; and he used to leather me. Well, you can fancy my joy when old Bloomfield, the lawyer, sent for me one day and said: ‘I’ve bad news for you, Mr. Leslie.’ ‘What’s that?’ said I. ‘Your father is dead. He died intestate, and you have inherited his property. I am advised it amounts to over twenty-one thousand pounds.’”
“Twenty-one thousand?” said Mac in admiration.
“Yes; and I said to Bloomfield: ‘You must be either a fool or a hypocrite, for that’s the best news I ever heard in my life, and you know it.’ Then some instinct took me over here to Japan. I was thinking of going to England, but I found all at once I had a horror of England and the English, so I came to Japan; and glad I am I came. Can you fancy what these people here are to me after the population of Sydney—those raucous, horse-racing, drink-swilling beasts? Then I fell in with you at Tokyo, and took a fancy to your old Scotch mug—and here we are.”
At this moment a little figure crossed the garden, bearing a lantern on the end of a stick. It was Wild-cherry-bud; and presently she appeared with the much-sought-for dragon wrapped in rice paper.
It was a wonderful creation with a twisted tail, rather stumpy wings, but with a mouth that made up for all defects; nothing so ferocious had ever perhaps before been done in sugar candy.
When the thing had been inspected and approved, Wild-cherry-bud led the way to where Campanula slept, for Leslie wished his present to be placed beside her, so that she might find it when she awoke.
The Lost One, looking very much lost indeed on a huge futon (a quilt thicker than a muffin), and covered by a blue mosquito-net with red bound edges, was so profoundly asleep that the clicking of the net being pulled aside and the light of the night lantern borne by Wild-cherry-bud did not disturb her. She was sleeping on her back, the top futon only drawn to her waist, and her little perfectly shaped white hands were crossed pathetically on her breast.
Leslie knelt down, and lifting one little hand placed the long-sought monster beneath it. The hand clasped the dragon, the long-sought dragon, and across the sleeper’s face passed what seemed the ghost of a smile.