over the sunny peaks of Fuji-yama, Yuki San arose, after a sleepless
night, and faced the morning with sorrowful eyes.

"You ve'y lazy, Mister Sun, this morning," she said, shaking a finger
at him in reproof; "where you the have been? Why you not come the more
early and make light for my busy?"

She tied the long sleeves of her bright kimono out of her way, and
twisting a bit of cloth about her head, fell to dusting the
_shoji_ and setting the small room in order.

"I must the hurry," she said, as she kept up her brisk dusting. "I
make the food so quick as that Robin San steal berry for his babies.
To-day him one big, big day, but him no glad day. Merrit San go away."
She paused in her work, and a look of pain darkened her eyes, but she
shook her head reproachfully.

"Ah, Yuki San, you make sorry voice and your heart is thinking tears.
You naughty girl! Quick you make the fire to rise in _hibachi_ and
give that Merrit San his _gohan_--same thing what that funny 'Merica
call breakfast."

After the steam had begun to rise from the vessels on several
_hibachi_, Yuki San, flushed by her exertions, rested upon her heels
before the door that led into the garden. As she fanned her flushed
face with her sleeve, she glanced again and again toward the narrow
stairway that led to the chamber above, and at the slightest sound she
listened in smiling expectancy.

From outside the wall came the gentle slip-slap of the water against