A wilful girl in a Japanese home! My disapproval fled. Soon enough life
would administer reproof and stretch out a rough hand to stay her
eagerness. I need add nothing.

A little depressed at losing her as a pupil and knowing that her
defiance could only bring sorrow, I asked her gently, "Do you love good
times?"

"Do I? Well, just wait till I get started. See if the slant eyes of the
inhabitants will not have another angle before I get through. They need
a few lessons on the rights of girls."

Neither Zura's home nor her parents seemed to have any part in her life.
She told of a prank played at midnight one Hallowe'en.

"But," I asked, "did your mother permit you to be out at such an hour?"

"My mother!" she repeated with a light laugh. "My mother is nothing but
a baby. She neither cared nor knew where I was or what I did."

"What about your father?" I ventured. "I understand you and he were
great friends."

If I had struck the girl, the effect could not have been more certain.
She arose quickly, her face aquiver with pain; she threw her hands
forward as if in appeal to some unseen figure; then she moaned, "Oh!
Daddy!" and she was gone.

Like the stupid old meddler I was, I tore the wound afresh. I exposed
the bruised place in the girl's life, but my blunder brought to light