ress; and under the same quiet influence my two active American children gradually changed into two dignified Japanese girls. Within two years’ time both spoke Japanese without accent and both wore Japanese dress so well that to strangers they appeared to have lived always in Japan.
“Just to be in the same house with Mother is excellent training for a girl,” I thought, congratulating myself that Hanano had adapted herself so well to her grandmother’s standards. Selfishly busy with my daily duties, and content that our home was so harmonious, I had forgotten that, when duty lies between the old and the young, Nature’s law points direct to youth. I was counting the gain only—but what of the loss?
One day in the cherry-blossom season, Hanano was sitting at her desk near mine when a light breeze touched the branches of a cherry tree near the porch and some pale pink petals drifted across her desk. She picked one up and after holding it a moment, pressed it gently between her fingers, then threw it aside, and sat looking at the damp spot on her finger.
“What are you thinking, Hanano?” I asked.
She looked up startled, then slowly turned away.
“One time in America,” she said after a moment, “when many people were at our house—I think it must have been an afternoon tea—I got tired and went out on the lawn. I climbed to my castle, you remember, the seventh limb of the big apple tree. The blossoms were just falling and a petal fell right into my hand. It left a wet spot, just like this cherry petal did. Oh, Mamma, wouldn’t you give just everything to see Grandma again—and the porch, and the trees, and——”
The little black head went down on the desk, but before I could reach her it was up again, held high.
“It’s all right,” she said; “I love Japan—now. But
