“Madame, you blind me with your magnificence,” exclaimed the bachelor, making a low bow.

“I’m glad you like my dress,” said the elegant little lady.

“It’s not the dress but the eyes,” he corrected her, just as Mr. Campbell, followed by Reggie Carlton and Nicholas Grimm, appeared.

“We meet to meet again,” cried Nicholas, joyfully.

The two young men were sailing for America on the same ship with the Campbells, and many a long happy day they were all to have together.

“And I am to be the only figure left on the Japanese screen,” said Mr. Buxton sadly.  “I shall have to walk across the curved bridges alone and consume tea for two under the flowering cherry tree.”

“I am afraid you will, sir,” said Miss Campbell.

“Madam, permit me,” he said solemnly, placing the apple tree at her feet.  “Is this any inducement?”

“Not the slightest,” answered Miss Helen with a laugh.

Mr. Buxton gazed sadly from one smiling face to another.

Then he opened the lacquered box and presented each of the Motor Maids with a beautiful embroidered silk robe.

“Have an empty box, then, Madam,” he announced, placing the casket in her lap, and because of the riotous and unseemly laughter, no one heard her reply.

So ended the last day of the Motor Maids in their pretty Japanese villa.  It was as happy and beautiful an evening as that land of flowers and hospitality could make it.  We should not be sorry ourselves to linger with them on those lovely shores, but the winter is at land and the season of dreams has passed.

Komatsu and O’Haru and old Saiki, the gardener, the four little maids, the grandmothers and the children remain picturesque figures in a picturesque land; and behind them, glistening In the sunlight, looms Fujiyama, sacred mountain of dazzling whiteness and perfect beauty.

For the Motor Maids this memory will live as the type of all the experiences and scenes of fair Japan.  Above the remembrance of stormy crises—­within and without—­of their sojourn there, rises the happy consciousness of a firmer, larger friendship which they may take with them as the choicest souvenir of the summer.

And in their homeland, if we wish, we may join them again to find what another year of life has revealed to them.  In the meantime, let us anticipate the pleasure in store for us with “The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp.”

END