Dick rose, red and confused. Then he climbed into the jinrikisha, trying to ignore the smiles of the man.

Yuki Chan, with her hands joined just below her sash, bent her body like a half-shut jack-knife.

"Arigato—arigato," she said politely, as she bowed again and again.

"Him say t'ank you," interpreted the jinrikisha man.

"Good-by," called Dick. "Don't forget—be good!"

Yuki Chan watched the back of the jinrikisha and the swinging brown legs of the jinrikisha man that showed beneath. She had forgotten the cat, but she still remembered the kind look in the blue eyes of the boy.

"Yuki, Yuki!" came the voice of the mother in her native tongue. "Come, the feast is prepared, and the sandals are worn from my feet running to seek you. Hurry! before the red beans grow cold."

The child sent a long-drawn "Hei" in answer to her mother, then to herself she said over and over:

"Be goodu—be goodu."

She had heard the words a few times before, but they were associated with her visits to the mission-school and a certain oblong box out of which came sticks of red and white with a very sweet taste. Now, as she said them, a new meaning seemed to play about them.

She slipped through the gate and walked with unhurried feet toward the small house, so gay in its festal plumage. As she passed the old plum- tree she looked up and saw the mother bird cuddling her babies beneath her breast.

Some tender thought lighted the child's face into a strange beauty, as a stray sunbeam finds a hidden flower and glorifies it. Turning her face upward to the nest, she patted her own cheek and said: "Be goodu, Yuki, be goodu."

CHAPTER II

In the springtime a Japanese house is a fairy-like thing, with only top and bottom of