“This is the place where, three hundred years ago, a Japanese feudal lord, named Date, I believe, sent an envoy to Rome acknowledging the Catholic supremacy. This is practically the birthplace of Catholicism in Japan.”
“Well, this is all very interesting, I must say. Yet I understand the only mission here, at present, is Presbyterian.”
“Exactly. Catholicism has been practically stamped out. There was a horrible massacre of the Jesuits here at one time, I believe. This visit by the priest and the party may do something for the place.”
They resumed their walk in silence.
“I don’t fancy,” said the elder one, “that it will be possible for us to shake off this little herd behind us. The thing for us to do is to find that will-o’-the-wisp of a tavern or the mission-house. Where do you suppose the place is?”
“The mission-house, rest assured, is elevated on some hill. Suppose we turn upward and—”
He broke off, at the same time stopping abruptly in his walk.
They were before a little garden composed of white stones and fantastic-spreading trees, seeming to bend their boughs over the miniature lake as if to regard their own reflected beauty. But it was not the distinction of the garden which attracted and startled the strangers, but the little figure which leaned over the gate.
Filtering through the tree-top by the gate, the sun slanted full upon the head of the girlish form, bronzing the hair almost to the color of deep gold. The girl’s eyes were wide open as if with faint surprise, her lips were apart, and she was plainly flushed with some unwonted excitement. She wore a plum-colored kimono, simple and exquisite. About her waist was an old-gold obi, and there was a flower ornament in her hair. The wings of her sleeves fell backward, disclosing arms of perfect whiteness and little hands which clung in tremulous excitement to the bamboo railing of the gate.
The tourists had been some months in Japan. One of them was an attaché to an American consulate. Well acquainted as they were with the soft-eyed, cherry-lipped beauty of young Japanese girls, they stood speechless, startled, before the picture that Hyacinth presented, as she in her turn gazed in wide-eyed astonishment at them. The mission-house folk were the only Westerners she had ever seen. These strangers did not at all resemble the Reverend Blount or his friends who came at different times to visit him. Even their clothes had a different cut, and their pleasant faces, in spite of their light eyes, to which she could never become accustomed, were shaven smooth and clean. No devils, thought Hyacinth quickly, would have such countenances. A mistake had been made in the popular impression. Nevertheless, the strangers were certainly odd curiosities.