ybody consumed while I had a rin, there was nothing
to do but make up to the Board what I had failed to collect.

These circumstances caused me to hesitate risking the peace of my
household, or putting one more responsibility on my purse.

Then sweet potatoes decided me. It was a matter of history that famine,
neither wide-spread nor local, ever gained a foothold where "Satsuma
Emo" flourished. This year they were fatter and cheaper than ever
before. I knew dozens of ways to fix them, natural and disguised; so I
bought an extra supply and made up my mind to keep Jane Gray.

The little missionary thrived in her new environment as would a drooping
plant freshly potted. As she grew stronger, she hinted at trying once
again to live in her old quarters, that she might fast and work and pray
for her sinners. I promptly suppressed any plans in that direction.

After all, I had been a lonelier woman than I realized, and Jane was
like a kitten with a bell around its neck--one grows used to its
playing about the house and misses it when gone. She also resembled a
fixed star in her belief that she had been divinely appointed to carry a
message of hope to the vilest of earth, and I felt that the same power
had charged me with the responsibility of impressing her with a measure
of commonsense.

So we compromised for a while at least. She would stay with me, and I
would not interfere with her work in the crime section, nor give way to
remarks on the subject.

I was sure the conditions in the Quarter would prove impossible, but as
some people cannot be convinced unless permitted to draw their own
diagram of failure, it was best for her to try when she was able to make
the effort.

The making of an extra room in a Japanese house is only a matter of
shifting a paper screen or so into a ready-made groove. It took me some
time to decide whether I should screen off Jane in the corner that
commanded a full view of the wonderful sea, or at the end where by
sliding open the paper doors she could step at once into the fairy land
of my garden.

Jane decided it herself. I discovered her stretched in an old
wheel-chair before the open doors, looking into the sun-flooded
greenery of the garden, and heard her softly repeating,

"Fair as plumes of dreams
In a land
Where only dreams come true,
And flutes of memory waken
Longings forgotten."

Any one who felt that way about my garden had a right to live close to