the cold water splashed about her bare legs and drenched her scanty skirts. Doubtless she would have punished her small charge, had she not at this juncture also perceived the Tojin. Her thick red lips fell instantly agape. She stared at him in a stunned wonder. Then her knees began to wabble, and she attempted to make an obeisance. With every kowtow she essayed, the waters from her pails bounced up and merrily splashed her. The Tojin-san burst into hearty laughter, and after a moment maid and youngster joined in his mirth. They then scuttled off like a pair of panic-stricken rats, their shining, wet heels flashing like snowballs in the sun behind them.

This simple domestic incident put the Tojin-san into an excellent humor at once. As he looked after the comical pair, and then turned back to gaze, entranced, at the magnificent view on all sides of him, his garden exquisite even in its winter dress, he marvelled at his gloom of the previous night. Then his glance went upward, travelled across the pure blue sky, and rested upon the snowy bosoms of Atago Yama and Hakusan. Suddenly he thought of the fox-woman. There was something chill, forbidding, sinister in those great, beautiful mountains of snow, looming out there in the sunny sky. He pictured this forsaken creature threading her bleak way under the towering frost-incrusted pines. The gloom of the previous night fell upon him again like a shadow. Shivering, he went indoors, snapping the closed latticed doors behind him.

A fine horse had been provided for the American teacher, and he rode abroad through the streets of Fukui, under an escort sent by the Prince of Echizen himself. Everywhere the friendly and curious citizens ran out to see the white-faced teacher, and bows and smiles were the general rule on all sides.

Occasionally, however, he met the scowling, threatening glance of some roving samourai, who, the interpreter explained, under the new order of things, was out of office and consequently a ronin. It was one of the unfortunate effects of the Restoration that so many men of the sword, who had previously been supported by the people as retainers in the service of princely houses, now found themselves without aristocratic employment, and, too proud to turn to trade, or other equally debasing labor, they wandered about the provinces, voicing their discontent of the order of things, picking quarrels on the slightest provocation, and prophesying dread things for the empire when it should fall under the dominion and patronage of the nations of the West. The ronins were all Jo-i (foreign haters), and they alone the Tojin-san need fear. Happily, the Prince of 

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