hese were recorded in the household shrine of the
Kano cottage, where her "ihai" stood, just behind a little lamp of pure
vegetable oil whose light had never yet been suffered to die. Through
this shrine, and the daily loving offices required by it, she had never
ceased to be a presence in the house. Even in his passionate desire
for a son to inherit the name and traditions of his race, old Kano had
not been able to endure the thought of a second wife who might wish the
shrine removed.

Ume-ko and her father were well known at the temple, and worshipped
often before its golden altars. But Mata scorned the ceremony of the
older creed. She was a Shinshu, a Protestant. Her sect discarded
mysticism as useless, believed in the marriage of priests, and in the
abolition of the monastic life, and relied for salvation only on the
love and mercy of Amida, the Buddha of Light.

Sometimes at twilight a group of shadowy human figures, gray as the
doves themselves, crept out from the nunnery gate, crossed the wide,
pebbled courtyard of the temple and stood, for long moments, by the
gnarled roots of the camphor tree, staring out across the beauty of the
plain of Yeddo; its shining bay a great mirror to the south, and off,
on the western horizon, where the last light hung, Fuji, a cone of
porphyry, massive against the gold.

For a full hour, now, Kano had delighted in the morning-glories. At
intervals he strolled about the garden to touch separately, as if in
greeting, each beloved plant. Except for the deepening fervor of the
sun he would have kept no note of time. The last shred of mist had
vanished. Crows and sparrows were busy with breakfast for their
nestlings.

It was, perhaps, the clamor of these feathered parents that, at last,
awoke old Mata in her sleeping closet near the kitchen. She turned
drowsily. The presence of an unusual light under the shoji brought her
to her knees. The amado in the further part of the house were
undoubtedly open. Could robbers have come in the night? And were her
master and Miss Ume weltering in gore?

She was on her feet now, pushing with shaking fingers at the sliding
walls. She peered at first into Ume's room for there, indeed, lay the
core of old Mata's heart. A slender figure on the floor stirred
slightly and a sound of soft breathing filled the silence. All was
well in Ume's room. She knocked then on Kano's fusuma. There was no
response. Cautiously she parted them,