35

Meanwhile the girl passed monotonous days in her temporary and unfinished lodgings. Even the grasses seemed oppressive. She heard only coarse East Country voices and there were no flowers to comfort her. As the days went by in a dreary procession, her thoughts turned with intense nostalgia to Nakanokimi. She thought too of Niou. His behavior had been deplorable and the memory of it still filled her with tenor; and yet, whatever he may have meant by them, he had said many charming things. It seemed to her that, faintly, his fragrance was still with her.

An affectionate letter came from the governor's wife, alive to her maternal duties as never before. The girl was sad for her mother too. She had tried so hard, and in vain. The letter said in part: “I can imagine how unhappy you must be in a strange house, but you must try to bear it for a time.”

“No, I am not at all unhappy,” the girl sent back. “Indeed I am having a very pleasant time.

“If I could think it a place apart from the world,

In happy procession then might pass the days.” *

The childlike innocence brought tears to the mother's eyes. How cruel it was that the girl should be driven from home, robbed of all security!

“Though it be in a house apart from this gloomy world,

I pray that the best may yet be mine to see.”

And so they exchanged simple, straightforward poems.