The House of the Misty Star

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The House of the Misty Star

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Title: The House of the Misty Star A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan
Author: Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
Release Date: November 19, 2005 [EBook #17108]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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The House of the Misty Star
[Illustration: She quickly walked across the burning coal]
The House of the Misty Star
A ROMANCE OF YOUTH AND HOPE AND LOVE IN OLD JAPAN
By
Frances Little (Fannie Caldwell Macaulay)
Author of "The Lady of the Decoration," etc.
[Illustration]
New York The Century Co. 1915
Copyright, 1915, by THE CENTURY CO.
Copyright, 1914, 1915, by THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
_Published, April, 1915_

TO A FAITHFUL FRIEND NUI SHIOME OF TOKIO.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I ENTER JANE GRAY 3 II KISHIMOTO SAN CALLS 16 III ZURA 32 IV JANE GRAY BRINGS HOME A MAN 55 V A CALL AND AN INVITATION 70 VI ZURA WINGATE'S VISIT 85 VII AN INTERRUPTED DINNER 95 VIII MR. CHALMERS SEES THE GARDEN AND HEARS THE TRUTH 108 IX JANE HOPES; KISHIMOTO DESPAIRS 125 X ZURA GOES TO THE FESTIVAL 138 XI A BROKEN SHRINE 147 XII A DREAM COMES TRUE 158 XIII A THANKSGIVING DINNER 174 XIV WHAT THE SETTING SUN REVEALED 190 XV PINKEY CHALMERS CALLS AGAIN 203 XVI ENTER KOBU, THE DETECTIVE 218 XVII A VISIT TO THE KENCHO 235 XVIII A VISITOR FROM AMERICA 243 XIX "THE END OF THE PERFECT DAY" 260

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
She quickly walked across the burning coal Frontispiece PAGE Through the sinister shadows of Flying Sparrow Street 13
Zura Wingate advanced to my lowly seat on the floor, and listlessly put out one hand to greet me 39
The bowing, bending, and indrawing of breath 75
Page started forward. A sound stopped him 113
"God in Heaven. How can I tell her!" 187
"Oh, God! A thief! It's over!" 245
Oh! boy, boy, I thought I'd lost you 263

The House of the Misty Star
[Illustration]

The House of the Misty Star

I
ENTER JANE GRAY
It must have been the name that made me take that little house on the hilltop. It was mostly view, but the title--supplemented by the very low rent--suggested the first line of a beautiful poem.
Nobody knows who began the custom or when, but for unknown years a night-light had been kept burning in a battered old bronze lantern swung just over my front door. Through the early morning mists the low white building itself seemed made of dreams; but the tiny flame, slipping beyond the low curving eaves, shone far at sea and by its light the Japanese sailors, coming around the rocky Tongue of Dragons point in their old junks, steered for home and rest. To them it was a welcome beacon. They called the place "The House of the Misty Star."
In it for thirty years I have toiled and taught and dreamed. From it I have watched the ships of mighty nations pass--some on errands of peace; some to change the map of the world. Through its casements I have seen God's glory in the sunsets and the tenderness of His love in the dawns. The pink hills of the spring and the crimson of the autumn have come and gone, and through the carved portals that mark the entrance to my home have drifted the flotsam and jetsam of the world. They have come for shelter, for food, for curiosity and sometimes because they must, till I have earned my title clear as step-mother-in-law to half the waifs and strays of the Orient.
Once it was a Chinese general, seeking safety from a mob. Then it was a fierce-looking Russian suspected as a spy and, when searched, found to be a frightened girl, seeking her sweetheart among the prisoners of war. The high, the low, the meek, and the impertinent, lost babies, begging pilgrims and tailless cats--all sooner or later have found their way through my gates and out again, barely touching the outer edges of my home life. But things never really began to happen to me, I mean things that actually counted, until Jane Gray came. After that it looked as if they were never going to stop.
You see I'd lived about fifty-eight years of solid monotony, broken only by the novelty of coming to Japan as a school teacher thirty years before and, although my soul yearned for the chance