“You what?” I reminded.

“Madam, I have a premonition that this process of eliminating the gay and the festive will be something of a herculean task.  In other words, keeping in the middle of the road is a dull, tough job.”

“Oh, Zura!” I cried despairingly.

“Yes’m.  But from this minute I am starting down the track on the race for reformation.  Give me time.  Even a colt can’t get a new character and a sweet disposition in a week.”

* * * * *

As the days passed it proved not a race, but a hard, up-hill battle, where in gaining one fight she sometimes lost two, and while still aching with the last defeat had to begin all over again.  The vision, though, of the home-going to America lured and beckoned her to the utmost effort to conquer not only circumstances, but herself.

Jane and I helped whenever we could, but there were places so dark through which the girl must pass alone, that not even our fast increasing love could light the shadows of the struggles.

I realized that a young girl should have young company of her own kind; but there was none for her.  In Hijiyama, and especially in our neighborhood, were many high-class families.  Even members of the royal line claimed it as residence.  With these the taint of foreign blood in any Japanese marked that person impossible.  I dreaded to tell Zura this.  She saved me the trouble by finding it out for herself.  Ever afterward, when by chance she encountered the elect, her attitude caused me no end of delight and amusement.  In courteous snubbing she outclassed the highest and most conservative to them.  In absenting herself from their presence Zura’s queenly dignity would have been matchless, had she been a little taller.

As much as possible, I made of myself a companion for her and the most of our days were spent together.

It was a curious pact between young and old.  One learning to keep the law, the other to break it, for in my efforts to be a gay comrade as well as a wise mother I came as near to breaking my neck as my well-seasoned habits.  Zura had a passion for out-of-door sketching, as violent as the whooping cough and lasting longer and the particular view she craved proved always most difficult of access, It severely tested my durability and mettle.  I wondered if Zura had this in mind, but I stuck grimly to my task and though often with aching muscles and panting lungs, scrambled by dangerous paths to the edge of some precipice where I dared neither to stand up nor to sit down, but I had longed for excitement and happenings and dared not complain when my wish was fulfilled.

I could always count upon it that, whatever place Zura chose, from there one could obtain the most splendid view of vast stretches of sea, the curve of a temple roof, a crooked pine, or a mass of blossom.  She was as irresistibly drawn to the beautiful as love is to youth.  Her passion for the lovely scenery of Japan amounted almost to worship.