Through its aged dim characters I read an edict issued in the days of long ago, banishing from the land of fair Nippon all Christians and Christianity.  It threatened with relentless torture any attempt to promulgate the faith, and contained an order for all citizens to appear in the public place on a certain day for adherents of the new religion to recant, by stamping on the Cross.

As the girl talked on, she revealed a life strangely inconsistent in a land which to me stood for all that was highest and most beautiful.  A curious thought came to me.  I wondered if the man who framed that edict had a vision of what foreign teachings might bring in its trail?  Possibly some presentiment haunted him of the great danger that would come to his people through contact with a country leagues removed in customs and beliefs.  Neither crucifixion nor torture had availed to keep out the new religion.  With it came wisdom and great reforms.  Misinterpretation too, had followed.  Old laws were shattered, and this girl, Zura Wingate was a product of a new order of things, the result of broken traditions, a daughter of two countries, a representative of neither.

Zura’s conversation was mainly of her amusements and diversions.

“But how did you manage so many pleasures while you were attending school?” I inquired.

“School?” she echoed.  “Oh! that never bothered me.  I had a system at school; it worked fine.  The days I felt like going, I crammed hard and broke the average record.  I also accumulated a beautiful headache.  This earned me a holiday and an excursion for my health.”

It was hard for me to understand a girl who deliberately planned to miss school, but I was taking a whole course in one afternoon.  Carefully I approached the object of my visit.  “Well, of course you desire to further pursue your studies in English, even though your home is to be in Japan.  I came this afternoon to ask—­do you not think it would be pleasant if you came to my house every day for a little study—­just to keep in practice?”

The girl’s lips framed a red circle as she drew out a long “Oh-h-h!  I see!  The mighty honorable Boss has been laying plans, has he?  Well, I think it would be perfectly grand—­N-I-T—­which in plain American spells ‘I will not do it.’”

Imagine a young girl telling one of her elders right to her face, she would not do it.  I never heard of such a thing.  For a moment I was torn between a desire to administer a stern reproof and leave her, and a great yearning to stand by and with love and sympathy to try to soften the only fate which could be in store for such as she.

We took each other’s measure and she, pretty and saucy as a gay young robin, went on fearlessly: 

“I’m an American to the backbone; I’m not going to be Japanese, or any kin to them.  As long as I have to stay I’m going to pursue the heavenly scenery around here and put it on paper.  Between pictures I’m going to have a good time—­all I want to.  Thank you for your invitation, but I have other engagements.”