For one month previous to this, I had been rooming in a boarding house
in Kanda-ku, pending a decision as to my future course. Kiyo was greatly
grieved to see the house in which she had lived so many years change
ownership, but she was helpless in the matter.

"If you were a little older, you might have inherited this house," she
once remarked in earnest.

If I could have inherited the house through being a little older, I
ought to have been able to inherit the house right then. She knew
nothing, and believed the lack of age only prevented my coming into the
possession of the house.

Thus I parted from my brother, but the disposal of Kiyo was a difficult
proposition. My brother was, of course, unable to take her along, nor
was there any danger of her following him so far away as Kyushu, while I
was in a small room of a boarding house, and might have to clear out
anytime at that. There was no way out, so I asked her if she intended to
work somewhere else. Finally she answered me definitely that she would
go to her nephew's and wait until I started my own house and get
married. This nephew was a clerk in the Court of Justice, and being
fairly well off, had invited Kiyo before more than once to come and live
with him, but Kiyo preferred to stay with us, even as a servant, since
she had become well used to our family. But now I think she thought it
better to go over to her nephew than to start a new life as servant in a
strange house. Be that as it may, she advised me to have my own
household soon, or get married, so she would come and help me in
housekeeping. I believe she liked me more than she did her own kin.

My brother came to me, two days previous to his departure for Kyushu,