boughs. He landed with both feet upon something palpitating and soft—something that caught its breath in a sigh, then inclosed him in its arms.

Komazawa guilty, but not altogether tamed, spoke no words to his mother. He stood stiffly and quietly still while she felt his wetness with her hands. But he threw off the cape in which she endeavored to wrap him. He was obliged to stand on tiptoe to put it back around his mother, and as this was an undignified position, his bravado broke down. Gradually he nestled up against her, and—strange marvel in Japan!—these two embraced and kissed each other.

After a while, as they trudged silently down the street homeward, Komazawa inquired, in a sharp little voice, as he looked up apprehensively at his mother:

“And the honorable stranger, mother?”

Aoi hesitated. The hand about her son trembled somewhat. His thin little fingers clutched it almost viciously. He flushed angrily.

“Why do you not answer me?” he asked, with peevishness.

“I have not seen the honorable one,” said Aoi, gently.

“Pah!” snapped the boy. “No, certainly, and we do not wish to see her. We do not like such bold intrusion.”

“Nay, son,” she reproved, “we must not so regard it. Let us remember the words of the good master, the august missionary.”

“What words?” inquired Koma, tartly. “Why, his excellency does not even know of the coming of the woman, since he is gone three days from Sendai now.”

“Ah, but my son, do you not remember that he taught us to treat with kindness the stranger within our gates?”

Koma made a sound of disapproval, his little, ill-tempered face puckered in a frown. After a moment he inquired again:

“But where is the woman, mother?”

Aoi regarded her small son almost apologetically.

“She is within our humble house,” she replied.

Koma pulled his hand from hers with a jerk. For a time he walked beside her in silence. He was strangely old for his years, and already he showed the inheritance of his father’s pride.

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