New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-05-07

IL.
1t was not the first time Chukei had called
at the house on Timber-st to consult the
Samurai about the future of his daughter
girl as pretty as Mutsu was bound to have
admirers enough in the town. and more than
one had sought the services of the middleman
to try to arrange the marriage. But Mutsu
was of no mind to marry simply for the asking
and she had a will of her own that came
straight from her high-tempered soldier father.
a will that even he was 10th to cross. And
often as Chukei had come to her house on
his unWelCOme business he had been sent
packing with only his trouble for his pains In
truth Iullichi was not sorry, for her mother
long dead, and he loved the spirited
girl and her gentle ways about the house.
more than ever lonely that Kokan her
brother had won his commission in the army
and was gone to his regiment What
mattered it to him if the neighborhood gossips
talked of the scandal of a daughter who dared
disclose a preference of her own counter to the
wish of her father? He loved his home and his
ease and she was the great factor in both.
Perhaps if he had been less fond he might
have been more suspicious Yet it had not
occurred to the simple Samurai that there could
be other reasons for his daughters hot dis
temper with the hopeful authors of Chukei's
viCariOus proposals than her own demOnstrative
desire to remain in the old home with him.
There was lively interest in the house on
Azalea-st when ChObci told his news. KOyo
the mother listened with the kindly sympathy
that ever kndcs the matchmaking maternal
heart and fetched fond sigh, with glance at
the corner where her son sat with his ink and
brush busily covering long roll of paper with
she knew not what words.
"Ah," she said, "if it were only Soich!'
"Hutl" cried her husband sharply. Our
son marry the daughter of Julich? What can
you be thinking of?
''Strange things happen nowadays" she an
swered, undauntcd by his scOrnful words and
looks. stranger things than that have hap
pened. And why not again? We are rich and
they are poor"
''Yes, and we are Eta and they Samurai,"
retorted Chobei sternly.
mo" said his wife quickly, and with
wonted daring, eve were Eta and they We're
Samurai. Now all that is ended. We are
commoners yet, to be sure; but who knows what
may come? One who can do for himself what
you have done may yet do more. 1t has been
done before. Why should not you, Soichi
himself win the promotion that would make
even Jukichi be glad to conscnt?"
''Whatever is the world coming to-" eX-
claimed Chobei in amazement, when foolish
women talk like that"
But Soichi said nothing at all, and went on
lking his brush fly like a dragon over the paper
if he heard not a word of their talk. Even in
pan, where husbands and wives are so often mere
ticles of arrangement and the HakodO does most
the wooing boys and girls occasionally will fall
love, small as may be the chance for a smooth
urse for their affection. But whatever can be
e use of a young mans loving a girl to dis
action unless he tells her about it? And what
n be the of a girl being willing to have him
re her unless she contrives somehow to let him
ow? So Soichi rolled up his yards of atfectionate
eographs and deity slipped them inside the long,
rrow enveoP, with the sprays of pink cherry
ossons trailing over it. and made haste to deposit
in the old secret place he and Mutsu had chosen