ur young girls.

"I, old Lagisiva, who am now fat and dull, was one. Oho, he was a man
of plenty! Did a girl but look out between her eyelashes at a piece of
print in the store, lo! it was hers, even though it measured twenty
fathoms in length--and print was a dollar a fathom in those days. So
every girl--even those from parts far off--cast herself in his way,
that he might notice her. And he was generous to all alike--in that
alone was wisdom.

* * * * *

"Once or twice every year the ships brought him letters. And he would
count the marks on the paper, and tell us that they came from a woman
of the PAPALAGI--his cousin, as you would call her--whose picture was
hung over his table. She was for ever smiling down upon us, and her
eyes were his eyes, and if he but smiled then were the two alike--alike
as are two children of the same birth. When three years had come and
gone a ship brought him a letter, and that night there were many of us
at his house, men and women, to talk with the people from the ship.
When those had gone away to their sleep, he called to the chief, and
said:--

"'In two days, O my friend, I set out for my land again; but to return,
for much do I desire to remain with you always. In six months I shall
be here again. And there is one thing I would speak of. I shall bring
back a white wife, a woman of my own country, whom I have loved for
many years.'

"Then Tamaali'i, the chief, who was my father's father, and very old,
said, 'She shall be my daughter, and welcome,' and many of us young
girls said also, 'She shall be welcome'--although we felt sorrowful to
lose a lover so good and open-handed. And then did the FOMA'I call to
the old chief and two others, and they entered the store and lighted
lamps, and presently a man went forth into the village, and cried
aloud: 'Come hither, all people, and listen!' So, many hundreds came,
and we all went in and found the floor covered with some of everything
that the white man possessed. And the chief spoke and said:

"'Behold, my people, this our good friend goeth away to his own country
that he may bring back a wife. And because many young unmarried girls
will say, "Why does he leave us? Are not we as good to look upon as
this other woman?" does he put these presents here on the ground and
these words into my mouth--"Out of his love to you, which must be a
thing that is past and forgotten, the wife that is coming must not know
of some little things--that i