sixteen," protested Mary.

O'Kami nodded her head and smiled.

"Arrange all the day before to this."

"Do you love him?" asked Mary, in an awed tone of voice.

O'Kami looked puzzled. The word "love" she had not learned.

"O'Kami much happy. Honorable mother of husband not any more. Gone." She
pointed up.

"Goodness!" broke in Elinor. "She means that there will be no
mother-in-law, so the marriage is sure to be a happy one. What a
mother-in-law ridden place this country is!"

She spoke too rapidly for the Japanese girl to grasp the meaning of any
word except "mother-in-law."

"Mother-in-law," she repeated slowly. "Little Japanese girl much afraid
to great mother-in-law."

The girls laughed and O'Kami's silvery note mingled with theirs.

"I found something quite new and interesting in the garden the other
day," observed Mary. "Or rather not quite new, but quite old. Who wants
to see it?"

"Lead on, Macduff," ordered Billie.