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“Ah-h! Condescend to give me his letter—”

The grandmother slowly and reluctantly took it from her sleeve and handed it to the father. Mr. Kurukawa’s eager fingers shook as he unfolded the letter, a long, narrow sheet, covered with the bold and characteristic writing up and down the pages of his son Gozo. As he perused it his face grew darkly red. The sheet rustled in his hands. When he had finished he crushed it, and stood for a moment in silence, anger and sorrow combating within him.

“So,” he finally spoke, “it was not honorable loyalty to the Mikado which inspired him, but a mean emotion—hatred of one he does not even know. I expected better of my son.”

He let the crumpled letter fall from his hand. Stooping, the grandmother picked it up, to place it tenderly in her sleeve. She spoke with a touch of reproach in her voice:

“Kurukawa Kiyskichi,” she said, “never before have I heard your lips speak bitterly of your eldest son. Be not inspired to feel anger towards him.” She glanced at Mrs. Kurukawa as though she were the one at fault. “Gozo is a good boy, has always been so. It was not hatred, as you say, which prompted him to leave his own. Call it rather a boy’s feeling of resentment, that the place of the one he had loved dearly—his mother—should so soon be filled—and by a bar—”