I have not dared to give her any suggestion of warning.  She is deadly sure of her duty, so enthralled is she with the thought of service to her mother’s people.  If I am to help her, the shock of disillusionment must come from some other direction.  The disillusioner is seldom forgiven.  I do not know what plans are being worked out behind Uncle’s lowered eyelids.  But I do know his idea of duty does not include keeping such a valuable asset as a bright and beautiful niece hid away for his solitary joy.  In fact, he would consider himself a neglectful and altogether unkind relative if he did not marry Sada off to the very best advantage to himself.  In the name of all the Orient, what else is there to do with a girl, and especially one whose blood is tainted with that of the West?

Well, Mate, my thoughts grew so thick on the subject I nearly suffocated.  I went for a walk and ran right into a cavalcade of donkeys, jinrickshas and chairs, headed by the Seeker and Dolly, who has also annexed the little Maharajah.

They had been up to Chuzenji—­and Chuzenji I would have you know is lovely enough, with its emerald lake and rainbow mists, to start a man’s tongue to love-making whether he will or not.  And so surely as it is raining, something has happened.  Dolly was as gay as a day-old butterfly and smiled as if a curly-headed Cupid had tickled her with a wing-feather.  The Seeker was deadly solemn.  Possibly the aftermath of his impetuosity.

Oh, well! there is no telling what wonders can be worked by incurable youthfulness and treasures laid up in a trust company.

The little Prince, with every pocket and his handkerchief full of small images of Buddha which he was collecting, asked at once for Sada.  His heart was in his eyes, but there is no use tampering with a to-be-incarnation by encouraging worldly thoughts.  So I said I had not seen her since we landed.  They were due on board the Siberia in Yokohama to-night on their way to China.  I waved them good wishes and went on, amused and not a little troubled.  Worried over Sada, hungry for Jack, lonesome for you.  I passed one of the gorgeous blue, green and yellow gates, at the entrance of a temple.  On one side is carved a distorted figure, that looks like a cross between an elephant and a buzzard.  It is called “Baku, the eater of evil dreams.”  My word! but I could furnish him a feast that would give him the fanciest case of indigestion he ever knew!

Mate, you would have to see Nikko, with its majestic cryptomarias, sheltering the red and gold lacquer temples; you would have to feel the mystery of the gray-green avenues, and have its holy silences fall like a benediction upon a restless spirit, to realize what healing for soul and body is in the very air, to understand why I joyfully loitered for two hours and came back sane and hungry, but wet as a fish.

Write me about the only man, the kiddies and your own blessed happy self.