l of rather unattractive exterior, fat and heavy, and rather older
than Yasaku had bargained for, I imagine; at any rate, from the first,
he seemed dissatisfied with his "pig in a poke," and after a couple of
months sent her home to her parents, and was all ready to start out
again in the hope of better luck next time.

Here is another instance, from the woman's side. Upon one occasion, when
I was visiting a Japanese lady of high rank who kept a retinue of
servants, the woman who came in with the tea bowed and smiled upon me as
if greeting me after a long absence. As I was in and out of the house
nearly every day, I was a little surprised at this demonstration, which
was quite different from the formal bow that is given by the servant to
her mistress's guest upon ordinary occasions. When she went out my
friend said, "You see O Kiku has come back." As I did not know that the
woman had been away, the news of her return did not affect me greatly
until I learned the history of her departure. It seemed that about a
month before, she had left her mistress's house to be married; and the
day before my visit she had quietly presented herself, and announced
that she had come back, if they would take her in. My friend had asked
her what had happened,--whether she had found her husband unkind. No,
her husband was very nice, very kind and good, but his mother was simply
unbearable; she made her work so hard that she actually had no time to
rest at all. She had known before her marriage that her proposed
mother-in-law was a hard task-mistress, but her husband had promised
that his mother should live with his older brother, and they should have
their housekeeping quite independent and separate. As the mother was
then living with her older son, it seemed unlikely that she would care
to move, and O Kiku San had married on that supposition. But it seemed
that the wife of the older brother was both lazy and bad-tempered, and
the new wife of the younger brother soon proved herself industrious and
good-natured. As the mother's main thought was to go where she would get
the most comfort and waiting upon, she moved from the elder son's house
to that of her younger son, and began leading her new daughter-in-law
such a life that she soon gave up the effort to live with her husband,
sued for a divorce, obtained it, and was back in her old place, all in a
month's time from the date of her marriage.

But our readers must not suppose, from the vari