ter quite opposed to the luck of
the bridegroom. This was no laughing matter, as the bride was of a noble
family and the breaking of the engagement would be attended with much
talk and trouble on both sides; but, on the other hand, the family of
the bridegroom dared not face the danger so mysteriously prophesied by
the fortune-teller. In this predicament, there was nothing to do but to
pull the wool over the eyes of the gods as best they might. For this
purpose the bride with all her belongings was sent the day before the
wedding from her father's house to that of an uncle living in another
part of the city, and on the morning of the wedding-day she came to her
husband from a quarter quite favorable to his fortunes. It seems quite
probable that the gods were taken in by this somewhat transparent
subterfuge, for no serious evil has befallen the young couple in three
years of married life.

_Page 317._

To the American mind this method of terminating relations is always
irritating and frequently embarrassing, but in Japan any discomfort is
to be endured rather than the slightest suspicion of bad manners. If the
foreign visitor is trying to learn to be a good Japanese, she must
submit patiently when the servant solemnly engaged fails to appear at
the appointed hour, sending a letter instead to say that she is ill; or
when the woman upon whom she is depending to travel with her the next
day to the country receives a telegram calling her to the bedside of a
mythical son, and departs, bag and baggage, at a moment's notice,
leaving her quondam mistress to shift for herself as best she may.

_Page 318._

Among the many changes that have come over Japan in the transition from
feudalism to the conditions of modern life, there is none that Japanese
ladies regard with greater regret than the change in the servant
question. As the years go by and new employments open to women, it
becomes increasingly difficult to engage and keep servants of the
old-time, faithful, intelligent sort. Notwithstanding increased pay, and
the still existing conditions of considerate treatment, comfortable
homes, and light work, it is hard to fill places vacated, even in noble
households: and there is almost as much shaking of heads and despondent
talk over the servant question in Japan to-day as there is in America.

_Page 322._

It is interesting to note that it is to the quickness and courage of a
jinrikisha man who interposed between him a