The Motor Maids in Fair Japan Part 34

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting And cometh from afar."

"Here comes someone," announced Billie, peering from the window of the drawing-room. "It's Mr. Buxton, I think, and he's heavily laden with parcels, apparently."

In another moment, the bachelor himself stood in the doorway regarding the charming picture with his half-humorous, half-grave expression.

"There were only three Graces, were there not?" he asked. "I've forgotten. It's been so long since I met them. But there should have been four."

"And why not five, since you are adding to the number," asked Mary.

"Meaning for the fifth the beauteous lady who lingers in her room?" he demanded.

"She out-graces us all," exclaimed Billie. "But what did you bring with you? Do tell us. We are dying of curiosity."

The bachelor's lips twitched with a crafty smile and he shook one finger at them like the sly old comedian he was.

"Walt!" he said, disappearing into the hall and reappearing in a moment with an aged, gnarled dwarf apple tree growing in a green vase, and a lacquered box beautifully inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

"Do you think I have the ghost of a chance?" he asked them in a whisper.

The girls were consumed with giggles.

"Not the ghost," laughed Billie. "She wouldn't stay in j.a.pan, not if you brought her all the Emperor's chrysanthemums in a single bunch."

"But what's in the box, Mr. Buxton?" demanded Nancy.

"You shall see," he answered. "Wait until the Fifth Grace appears."

"Here she is," they cried in a chorus, as Miss Campbell swept into the room, resplendent in mauve satin covered with billows of fine lace.

"Madame, you blind me with your magnificence," exclaimed the bachelor, making a low bow.

"I'm glad you like my dress," said the elegant little lady.

"It's not the dress but the eyes," he corrected her, just as Mr.

Campbell, followed by Reggie Carlton and Nicholas Grimm, appeared.

"We meet to meet again," cried Nicholas, joyfully.

The two young men were sailing for America on the same ship with the Campbells, and many a long happy day they were all to have together.

"And I am to be the only figure left on the j.a.panese screen," said Mr.

Buxton sadly. "I shall have to walk across the curved bridges alone and consume tea for two under the flowering cherry tree."

"I am afraid you will, sir," said Miss Campbell.

"Madam, permit me," he said solemnly, placing the apple tree at her feet.

"Is this any inducement?"

"Not the slightest," answered Miss Helen with a laugh.

Mr. Buxton gazed sadly from one smiling face to another.

Then he opened the lacquered box and presented each of the Motor Maids with a beautiful embroidered silk robe.

"Have an empty box, then, Madam," he announced, placing the casket in her lap, and because of the riotous and unseemly laughter, no one heard her reply.

So ended the last day of the Motor Maids in their pretty j.a.panese villa.

It was as happy and beautiful an evening as that land of flowers and hospitality could make it. We should not be sorry ourselves to linger with them on those lovely sh.o.r.es, but the winter is at land and the season of dreams has pa.s.sed.

Komatsu and O'Haru and old Saiki, the gardener, the four little maids, the grandmothers and the children remain picturesque figures in a picturesque land; and behind them, glistening In the sunlight, looms Fujiyama, sacred mountain of dazzling whiteness and perfect beauty.

For the Motor Maids this memory will live as the type of all the experiences and scenes of fair j.a.pan. Above the remembrance of stormy crises--within and without--of their sojourn there, rises the happy consciousness of a firmer, larger friendship which they may take with them as the choicest souvenir of the summer.

And in their homeland, if we wish, we may join them again to find what another year of life has revealed to them. In the meantime, let us antic.i.p.ate the pleasure in store for us with "The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp."

END