early
years,--a copy in which something is wanting. Sadly do I ask
myself,--Is the splendor of the summer only this? _was it_ only this?
or is it the fault of my eyes, and as time goes on shall I behold
everything around me paling still more?

Behind me a faint and melancholy strain of music,--melancholy enough
to make one shiver,--and shrill, shrill as the song of the
grasshoppers, began to make itself heard, very softly at first, then
growing louder and rising in the silence of the noonday like the
diminutive wail of some poor Japanese soul in pain and anguish; it was
Chrysantheme and her guitar awaking together.

It pleased me that the idea should have occurred to her to greet me
with music, instead of eagerly hastening to wish me "Good morning."
(At no time have I ever given myself the trouble to pretend the
slightest affection for her, and a certain coldness even has grown up
between us, especially when we are alone.) But to-day I turn to her
with a smile, and wave my hand for her to continue. "Go on, it amuses
me to listen to your quaint little impromptu." It is singular that the
music of this essentially merry people should be so plaintive. But
undoubtedly that which Chrysantheme is playing at this moment is worth
listening to. Whence can it have come to her? What unutterable dreams,
forever hidden from me, fly through her yellow head, when she plays or
sings in this manner?

Suddenly: Pan, pan, pan! Some one knocks three times, with a harsh
and bony finger against one of the steps of our stairs, and in the
aperture of our doorway appears an idiot, clad in a suit of gray
tweed, who bows low. "Come in, come in, M. Kangourou. How well you
come, just in the nick of time! I was actually becoming enthusiastic
over your country!"

It was a little washing bill, which M. Kangourou respectfully wished
to hand to me, with a profound bend of the whole body, the correct
pose of the hands on the knees, and a long snake-like hiss.

XXI.

Following the road which climbs past the front of our dwelling, one
passes a dozen or more old villas, a few garden walls, and then there
is nothing but the lonely mountain side, with little paths winding
upwards towards the summit through plantations of tea, bushes of
camellias, underwood and rocks. The mountains round Nagasaki are
covered with cemeteries; for centuries and centuries past it is up
here they have brought their dead.

But there is neither sadness nor horror i