monkey falls"; and some distant day
the Western world that thinks so highly of Japan will see beneath the
surface and will leave her, and the great pagoda she has builded
without foundation will come tumbling down like the houses of sand
which my children build in the garden. It will be seen that they are like
their beautiful kimonas, that hang so gracefully in silken folds. But
take away the kimonas, and the sons and daughters of that Empire
are revealed in all their ugliness-- coarse, heavy, sensual, with no
grace or spirit life to distinguish them from animals.

[Illustration: Mylady19.]

Do I speak strongly, my Mother? We feel most strongly the action of
the Japanese in this, our time of trouble. We have lost friends; the
husbands, brothers, fathers of our women-folk are lying in long
trenches because of training given to our rebels by members of that
race. I should not speak so frankly, but it is only to thee that I can
say what is within my heart. I must put the bar of silence across my
lips with all save thee; and sitting here within the courtyard I hear all
that goes on in Yamen, shop, and women's quarters. One need not
leave one's doorway to learn of the great world. I hear my sons speak
of new China, and many things I do not understand; my husband and
his friends talk more sedately, for they are watching thoughtful men,
trying hard to steer this, our ship of State, among the rocks that now
beset it close on every side. My daughters bring their friends, my
servants their companions, and the gossip of our busy world is
emptied at my feet.

The clock strikes one, and all the world's asleep except,
Kwei-li.

11
Dear Mother,
She is here, my daughter-in-law, and I can realise in a small degree
thy feelings when I first came to thy household. I know thou wert
prepared to give me the same love and care that my heart longs to
give to this, the wife of my eldest son. I also know how she feels in
this strange place, with no loved faces near her, with the thought that
perhaps the new home will mean the closed doors of a prison, and the
husband she never saw until the marriage day the jealous guardian
thereof. I have tried to give her welcome and let her see that she is
heart of our hearts, a part of us.

She is different from the young girls I have seen these latter days,
different from my daughters, and-- I may say it to thee, my Mother-- a
sweeter, dearer maiden in many ways. She has been trained within
the