on for out-of-door sketching, as
violent as the whooping cough and lasting longer and the particular view
she craved proved always most difficult of access, It severely tested my
durability and mettle. I wondered if Zura had this in mind, but I stuck
grimly to my task and though often with aching muscles and panting
lungs, scrambled by dangerous paths to the edge of some precipice where
I dared neither to stand up nor to sit down, but I had longed for
excitement and happenings and dared not complain when my wish was
fulfilled.

I could always count upon it that, whatever place Zura chose, from there
one could obtain the most splendid view of vast stretches of sea, the
curve of a temple roof, a crooked pine, or a mass of blossom. She was as
irresistibly drawn to the beautiful as love is to youth. Her passion for
the lovely scenery of Japan amounted almost to worship.

I had never been a model for anything. Now I was used as such by my
companion indiscriminately, in the background, in the foreground and
once as a grayhaired witch. I was commanded to sit still, to not wink an
eyelash, though the mosquitoes feasted and the hornets buzzed.

Fortunately the summer holiday gave me some leisure. I absorbed every
moment seeking comprehension of youthful ways of looking at things, and
in Zura's effort to reduce her wild gallop to a sober pace, the way was
as rough for the girl, as the climb up the mountain side was for me.
Often she stumbled and was bruised in the fall. Brushing aside the
tears of discouragement she pluckily faced about and tried again.

There were many battles of tongue and spirit but when the smoke had been
swept away, the vision was clearer, the purpose firmer.

That monotony might not work disaster or routine grow irksome our
workdays were interspersed with picnics, journeys to famous spots and,
for the nights, moonlight sails on the Inland Sea.

Page Hanaford was our frequent guest. To Jane and me his attitude was
one of kindly deference and attention. Towards Zura it was the mighty
call of youth to youth. She answered with ready friendship. It was easy
to see that the boy was buoyant by nature, but the moods that sometimes
overtook him were strange. Often at a moment when the merriment was at
its height, the hand of some invisible enemy seemed to reach out and
clutch him in a dumb horror, confused the frankness of his eyes, left
him with bloodless lips. From light-hearted happiness he plunged to
silen