thwart your plans concerning a cat? I remember it very well, and the
jolly picnics and excursions that you and my mother and I took
together afterward.

I hope you have not forgotten me, for I am going to claim the
privilege of the conqueror in that old battle and ask a favor of you.
My Government has sent me out to your country on some important
business, and finding there was no hotel close to my work, I wrote to
the school where my mother and I visited twelve years ago, and asked
them to recommend a family that would be good enough to take me in for
two months. Strangely enough your father's name was suggested, and
when I read that the only daughter both spoke and wrote English, and
that her name was Yuki San, my mind flew back to my "Little Sister
Snow" of the days gone by.

Could your father manage to accommodate me for a couple of months, if
I promise to be very good and take up as little room as possible? If
you think he can, please wire me here at Yokohama, and I'll come
straight down.

Hoping to see you very soon, I am

Your old friend,

RICHARD MELTON MERRIT.

Yuki San turned the letter this way and that, and vainly tried to
decipher the strange words. It was undoubtedly English, but not the
English she was used to. She ran for her small dictionary and
diligently searched out the meaning of each phrase.