forever hidden from me, fly through her yellow head, when she plays or
sings in this manner?

Suddenly: Pan, pan, pan! Some one knocks three times, with a harsh
and bony finger against one of the steps of our stairs, and in the
aperture of our doorway appears an idiot, clad in a suit of gray
tweed, who bows low. "Come in, come in, M. Kangourou. How well you
come, just in the nick of time! I was actually becoming enthusiastic
over your country!"

It was a little washing bill, which M. Kangourou respectfully wished
to hand to me, with a profound bend of the whole body, the correct
pose of the hands on the knees, and a long snake-like hiss.




XXI.


Following the road which climbs past the front of our dwelling, one
passes a dozen or more old villas, a few garden walls, and then there
is nothing but the lonely mountain side, with little paths winding
upwards towards the summit through plantations of tea, bushes of
camellias, underwood and rocks. The mountains round Nagasaki are
covered with cemeteries; for centuries and centuries past it is up
here they have brought their dead.

But there is neither sadness nor horror in these Japanese sepulchers;
it would seem as if among this frivolous and childish people, death