wearing of strong glasses. I remembered
his father's words: "The eldest is almost of another race, with brown
hair and eyes of the fairy colour, and a tendency to pronounce with a
queer little Irish accent the words of old English poems which he has to
learn by heart."

Then, as the thought passed through one's mind of his extraordinary
likeness to his Irish relations, an impassive, Buddha-like, Japanese
expression--a mask of reserve as it were--fell like a curtain over his
face,--he was Japanese again.

He spoke English slowly and haltingly; to me it was incomprehensible;
his cousin, on the contrary, seemed to understand every word, as if a
sort of freemasonry existed between them. There was something pathetic
in watching his earnest endeavours to make his occidental relative
understand what he wished to say.

It is a myth that Mrs. Koizumi talks English; her "Reminiscences" have
been taken down and translated by interpreters; principally by the
Japanese poet Yone Noguchi. If she ever knew any, it has been entirely
forgotten. Indeed, had it not been for the intervention of Mr. Mason,
who is a first-rate Japanese scholar, we should have found ourselves
considerably embarrassed. One thing, however, she certainly
possessed--that most desirable thing in woman, to which her husband had
been so sensitive--a soft and musical voice.

Mrs. Atkinson had brought some gifts for the four children from England,
and an old-fashioned gold locket, which had belonged to Lafcadio's
father, for her sister-in-law. She tried playfully to pass the chain
round Mrs. Koizumi's neck, but the little lady crossed her hands on her
bosom and declined persistently to allow her to do so. Mr. Mason then
told us that it was against all the rules of decorum for a Japanese
woman to wear any article of jewellery.

[Illustration: CARLETON ATKINSON.]

Towards the end of her visit, which lasted an interminable
time--Japanese visits usually do--Mrs. Koizumi gave us an invitation for
the following Sunday to come to dinner at 266, Nishi Okubo, and promised
that her son Kazuo should come to fetch us. Needless to say, this
invitation was the acme of our hopes; we accepted eagerly, and, to save
Kazuo the trouble of coming to Yokohama, we determined to flit the next
day, Saturday, from Yokohama to Tokyo.

The Metropole, or, as Hearn dubbed it, "The Palace of Woe," was the
hotel we selected. Our dinner that night was eaten in the room where
Professor Foxwel