by a friend to
shave off his hair and become a monk, but a faithful servant who
attended him counselled him to keep his hair and await with a brave
heart what the future might bring forth. The boy was shrewd and
possessed of high self-control. None of the remaining followers of his
father dared communicate with him, and enemies surrounded him, yet he
restrained all display of feeling, was patient under provocation,
capable of great endurance, and so winning in manner that he gained the
esteem even of the enemies of his family.

The story of Yoritomo's courtship and marriage is one of much interest.
Hojo Tokimasa, a noble with royal blood in his veins, had two daughters,
the elder being of noted beauty, the younger lacking in personal charms.
The exiled youth, who wished to ally himself to this powerful house and
was anxious to win the mother's favor in his suit, was prudent enough to
choose the homely girl. He sent her a letter, asking her hand in
marriage, by his servant, but the latter, who had ideas of his own and
preferred the beauty for his master's wife, destroyed the letter and
wrote another to Masago, the elder daughter.

That night the homely sister had a dream. A pigeon seemed to fly to her
with a box of gold in its beak. She told her vision to her sister, whom
it deeply interested, as seeming to be a token of some good fortune
coming.

"I will buy your dream," she said. "Sell it to me, and I will give you
my toilet mirror in exchange. The price I pay is little," she repeated,
using a common Japanese phrase.

The homely sister willingly made the exchange, doubtless preferring a
mirror to a dream. But she had hardly done so when the messenger arrived
with the letter he had prepared. Masago gladly accepted, already being
well inclined towards the handsome youth, but her father had meanwhile
promised her hand to another suitor, and refused to break his word. The
marriage was solemnized. But an understanding had been reached between
the lovers, and early on the wedding-night Masago eloped with the
waiting youth. In vain the husband sought for the fleeing pair. The
father, seemingly angry, aided him in his search, though really glad at
the lovers' flight. He much preferred Yoritomo, though he had been bound
by his word, and in later years he became one of his ablest partisans.
Masago rose to fame in Japanese history, aided in the subsequent triumph
of her spouse, and did much to add to the splendor and dignity