to receive letters and other postal matter for him and
do little commissions for him here, and I remember at times English
letters passing through my hands. These were all carefully reposted to
him as they came, and I should say that your letters had undoubtedly
reached him.

"No apology is necessary on your part, as I am pleased to afford you
whatever consolation you may find in the knowledge of the fact that your
brother is alive and well. I think I may venture to say that if he has
neglected his friends it is due to being busy.

"I send you his address below.

"Yours faithfully,
"JAS. ELLACOTT BEALE.

"_No. 16, Zashiki,
"Shichi-chome, Bangai,
"Naka Zamate-dori,
"Kobe, Japan._

"MRS. M. C. BUCKLEY-ATKINSON.

"Since writing the foregoing I have learned that your brother has been
appointed to a post in the University. The announcement will appear in
to-morrow's _Mail_.

"This appointment will necessitate Hearn's removal to the capital, and
as the vacation expires on September 15, the address at Kobe I have
given will not find him. As soon as his Tokyo address reaches me I will
send it to you.

"J. E. B."

As a set-off to this unaccountable break in his correspondence with his
sister, I would like to end this chapter with a touching and pathetic
letter, addressed to Mrs. Watkin at Cincinnati, and another to his "Old
Dad," friends of over twenty years' standing, but unfortunately am not
able to do so. Hitherto Hearn's affection had been given to Mr. Watkin;
of his female belongings he had seen but little. Now apparently, Mrs.
and Miss Effie Watkin ventured to address the "great man," as their
husband's and father's eccentric Bohemian little friend had become. To
Mrs. Watkin he touches on the mysteries of spiritualism which were
scarcely mysteries in the Far East; some day he hoped to drop in on all
the circle he loved and talk ghostliness. Some hints of it appeared, he
said, in a little book of his, "Out of the East." He imagined Mr. Watkin
to be more like Homer than ever. He himself had become grey and
wrinkled, fat, too, and disinclined for violent exercise. In other
words, he was getting down the shady side of the hill, the horizon
before him was already darkening, and the winds blowing out of it cold.
He was not in the least co