“Won’t some little maid keep a lonely man company?” he called, and Mary Price responded promptly to this appeal.  “I am the most honored man in the whole party,” he said, gallantly jumping out and helping her in as if she were a small queen.

Mary smiled happily, but she felt in her heart that she was the most honored of all.  No one had ever treated her with such deference and courtesy as this splendid big man who gazed down at her with a protecting air and listened to her rather timid conversation with absorbed interest.

It was a wonderful thing, Mary thought, almost too wonderful to be believed that a distinguished engineer who had been sent for by governments to build railroads and give advice about public improvements, would condescend even to notice a quiet little person like her.  But the famous engineer was really a very simple man, as modest as she herself was and quite as gentle.

On the front seat beside Billie sat Nicholas, and Reginald was in the back with Elinor.  Every laddie had a lassie that morning, and Billie, who was a bit skeptical over Nancy’s headache, wondered vaguely if this could have been the reason for her staying at home.  But she put the thought away from her at once as being unworthy.  Billie sighed and gave herself an impatient little shake.  Her heart yearned for the old Nancy of the early days who seemed so changed now.  She was determined never to mention the letter, but somehow it seemed always to stand between them.  Both girls thought of it constantly, Nancy with remorse and bitterness for her own disloyalty, and Billie with a kind of puzzled sadness.  After all, the two friends had much to learn about each other’s natures.

Nancy on her bed in the darkened room was saying: 

“If I only could prove to Billie and to all of them that I am not disloyal!”

Billie, guiding the “Comet” along the country road, was thinking: 

“If Nancy would only be frank and tell me what’s on her mind!  How can we go on like this when we are drifting farther and farther away?”

The excursion to-day was of special interest to Mr. Campbell and his guests.  They were riding forth to see Fujiyama (or “Fuji San,” as the Japanese call it, “yama,” meaning simply “mountain"), the sacred mountain of perfect beauty and shining whiteness.

Once Saiki, their old gardener, had conducted them to a small elevation in the garden, and in a manner both reverential and proud, had pointed to a vista in the trees carefully made by lopping off certain branches.  There, in the background of a long, narrow perspective loomed the great mountain, exactly as it does in thousands of Japanese scrolls.  Here, many a time, Mary had sat and watched the white cone shining in the sunlight.  She understood why it was called the “Peak of the White Lotus,” The low green hills at its feet were the leaves of the flower and the eight sided crater, perfect in symmetry, formed the petals.