"What complexions!" whispered Patricia. "The old lady made hers this morning, sitting flat on a white mat in front of a camphor-wood dressing-chest about two feet high, with twenty drawers and a round steel mirror on top. It beats a hare's-foot, doesn't it! The daughter's is natural. If I had been born with a skin like that, it would have changed my whole disposition!"
Having settled her air-cushion, the old lady drew from her girdle a lacquer case and produced a pipe—a thin reed with a tiny silver bowl at its end. A flat box yielded a pinch of tobacco as fine as snuff. This she rolled between her fingers into a ball the size of a small pea, placed it carefully in the bowl and began to smoke. Each puff she inhaled with a lingering inspiration and emitted it slowly, in a thin curdled cloud, from her nostrils. Three puffs, and the tiny coal was exhausted. She tapped the pipe gently against the edge of the seat, put it back into the case and replaced the latter in her girdle. Then, tucking up her feet under her on the plush seat, she turned her back to the aisle and went to sleep.
Three students in the uniform of some lower school with foreign jackets of blue-black cloth set off with brass buttons, sat in a row on the opposite side. Each had a cap like a cadet's, with a gilt cherry-blossom on its front, and all watched Barbara movelessly. The man nearest her wore a round straw hat and horn spectacles. He was reading a vernacular newspaper, intoning under his breath with a monotonous sing-song, like the humming of a bumblebee. Between them a little boy sat on the edge of the seat, his clogs hanging from the thong between his bare toes, the sleeves of his kimono bulging with bundles. He stared as if hypnotized at a curl of Barbara's bronze hair which lay against the cushion. Once he stretched out a hand furtively to touch it, but drew it back hastily.
"If I could only talk to him!" Barbara exclaimed. "I want to know the language. Tell me, Patsy—how long did it take you to learn?"
"I?" cried Patricia in comical amazement. "Heavens and earth, I haven't learned it! I only know enough to badger the servants. You have to turn yourself inside out to think Japanese, and then stand on your head to talk it."
"Never mind, Barbara," said the bishop, looking up from his newspaper. "You can learn it if you insist on it. Haru would be a capital teacher—bless my soul, I believe I forgot to tell you about her!"
"Who is Haru?" asked Barbara.
"She's a young Japanese girl, the daughter of the old samurai who sold us the land for the Chapel. The family is a fine old one, but of frayed fortune. I was greatly interested in her, chiefly, perhaps, because she is a Christian. She became so with her father's consent, though he is a Buddhist. She isn't of the servant class, of course, but I thought—if you liked—she would make an ideal companion for you while you are learning Tokyo."
"I know Haru," said Patricia. "She's a dear! She's as pretty as a picture, and her English is too quaint!"
"It would be lovely to have her," Barbara answered. "You're a very thoughtful man, Uncle Arthur. Are you sure she'll want to?"