easure in the society of a European. My scholars in
this great Government school are not boys, but men. They speak to me
only in class. The teachers never speak to me at all. I go to the
college and return after class,--always alone, no mental company but
books. But at home everything is sweet."

In consequence of this isolation, or because of the softening influence
of matrimony, here at Kumamoto he seemed for the first time to awake to
the fact of having relations in that distant western land he had left so
many years before. "Our soul, or souls, ever wanders back to its own
kindred," he says to his sister.

His father, Charles Bush Hearn, had left three children by his second
wife (daughters), all born in India. Invalided home, Charles Hearn had
died, in the Red Sea, of Indian fever; the three orphan children and his
widow continued their journey to Ireland.

At their mother's death, which occurred a few years later, the girls
were placed under the guardianship of various members of the family; two
of them ultimately married; one of them a Mr. Brown, the other a Mr.
Buckley Atkinson. The unmarried one, Miss Lillah Hearn, went out to
Michigan in America, to stop with Lafcadio's brother, and her own
half-brother, Daniel James Hearn, or Jim, as he was usually called.

Public interest was gradually awakening with regard to Japanese affairs.
Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain's and Satow's books were looked upon as
standard works to refer to for information concerning the political and
social affairs of the extraordinary little people who were working their
way to the van in the Far East. But, above all, Lafcadio Hearn's
articles contributed to the _Atlantic Monthly_, afterwards published
under the title of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," had claimed public
attention.

Miss Lillah Hearn was the first member of the family to write to this
half-brother, who was becoming so famous, but received no answer. Then
Mrs. Brown, the other sister, approached him, silence greeted her
efforts as well. On hearing of his marriage to a Japanese lady, Mrs.
Atkinson, the youngest sister, wrote. Whether it was that she softened
the exile's heart in his expatriation by that sympathy and innate tact
which are two of her distinguished qualities, it is impossible to say,
but her letter was answered.

This strange relative of theirs who had gone to Japan, adopted Japanese
dress and habits, and married a Japanese lady, had become somewhat of