At last, however, I was free to go and delayed not a minute in starting on my visit.

  Kishimoto's home was lower down in the city than mine and very near the sea. The house was ancient and honorable. Its air of antiquity was undisturbed by the great changes which had swept the land in the ages it had stood. The masters had changed from father to son, but the house was as it had been in the beginning, and with it lived unbroken and unshifting, the traditions and beliefs of its founders.

  It was only a matter of a few minutes after passing the lodge gates until I was ushered into the general living-room and the center of the family life.

  The master being absent, the ceremony of wel[Pg 38]coming to his house a strange guest was performed by his wife.

  One could see at a glance that she belonged to the old order of things when the seed. . . Read More