veins; nor could any observer, after being informed, fail to note
immediately the Chinese traces.

As beauties, the Ah Chun girls were something new. Nothing like
them had been seen before. They resembled nothing so much as they
resembled one another, and yet each girl was sharply individual.
There was no mistaking one for another. On the other hand, Maud,
who was blue-eyed and yellow-haired, would remind one instantly of
Henrietta, an olive brunette with large, languishing dark eyes and
hair that was blue-black. The hint of resemblance that ran through
them all, reconciling every differentiation, was Ah Chun's
contribution. He had furnished the groundwork upon which had been
traced the blended patterns of the races. He had furnished the
slim-boned Chinese frame, upon which had been builded the delicacies
and subtleties of Saxon, Latin, and Polynesian flesh.

Mrs. Ah Chun had ideas of her own to which Ah Chun gave credence,
though never permitting them expression when they conflicted with
his own philosophic calm. She had been used all her life to living
in European fashion. Very well. Ah Chun gave her a European
mansion. Later, as his sons and daughters grew able to advise, he
built a bungalow, a spacious, rambling affair, as unpretentious as
it was magnificent. Also, as time went by, there arose a mountain
house on Tantalus, to which the family could flee when the "sick
wind" blew from the south. And at Waikiki he built a beach
residence on an extensive site so well chosen that later on, when
the United States government condemned it for fortification
purposes, an immense sum accompanied the condemnation. In all his
houses were billiard and smoking rooms and guest rooms galore, for
Ah Chun's wonderful progeny was given to lavish entertainment. The