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218 two days and the uncle sent a very polite letter to the following effect. They had all been much honoured by the honourable stranger's presence in their humble home, and thanked him for his great kindness to O Maru. She would very much like to travel with so distinguished and noble-hearted a person, nor had he, the uncle, any objection to her doing so. But he would like to call august attention to the fact that he had an adopted son who wished to learn French and would make an excellent guide, if permitted to join the party. He hoped the proposal would commend itself to so kind a friend of the family as Borega Sama had shown himself to be. Instead of pleasing "Borega Sama," this offer to include an "adopted son" in the compact distinctly frightened him. He knew cases of Europeans who had been led by liking for a native girl to burden themselves with her incalculable relations, but he did not consider that a trip of two months should be encumbered by any such superfluous attendants. So he wrote a courteous refusal. By this time the vagueness of sono itchi preyed on his intelligence, and, when its elasticity stretched to eight days, he wired once more: "What do you mean by sono uchi? When will you come?" And the answer appeased him: "Will come before the end of the month." But the end of the month brought a second most affable letter from the host of the Asano-ya, in which he expressed his intense anxiety to oblige the honourable stranger in every possible way, but it so happened that just at that time O Maru could not be spared, as his humble house was full of reverend pilgrims on their way to Kinkwa-zan, the golden-flower mountain, and these monopolised her services. He therefore would send back the money which Borega Sama had so