"Go men nasai."

The mother, with a courtly but playful air, granted her pardon with a
low salutation. Then with a rush of affection that no convention could
stem, she folded the child to her heart and lived another moment of
supreme joy.

The father sat by, making no comment, his eyes bright and twinkling.
Then he suggested that their Majesties, the dolls, had been waiting
long on the shelf. Was it not time they were receiving a visit?

The years of toil were telling on both father and mother, but they
daily refreshed themselves at the overbrimming fountain of Yuki Chan's
youth, and now, as they each took one of her hands to go in to see the
dolls, they were so gay that the child suggested that instead of
walking they should do the new one-two-three-hop she had learned at
the kindergarten.

It was unheard-of conduct, but it was for Yuki Chan, and father and
mother stumped along, cheered on by the small girl who was trying to
keep time, but was breathless through sheer excess of happiness.

There was nothing in the room to impede their progress. No chairs with
treacherous legs to trip over, no beds, nor tables with sharp corners
--nothing whatever but the matting, soft and thick, where Yuki Chan had
practised all the gymnastics of childhood unbruised and unharmed.

Half skipping, half hopping, and wholly undone with laughter and
exertion, the three at last reached the place where, for six years,