"There were still four of us,-grandmother, brother, myself, and my little sister. My brother was nineteen years old. He had finished his apprenticeship just before father died: we thought that was like the pity of the gods for us. He had become the head of the house. He was very skilful in his business, and had many friends: therefore he could maintain us. He made thirteen yen the first month;-that is very good for a sealcutter. One evening he came home sick: he said that his head hurt him. Mother had then been dead fortyseven days. That evening he could not eat. Next morning he was not able to get up; he had a very hot fever: we nursed him as well as we could, and sat up at night to watch by him; but he did not get better. On the morning of the third day of his sickness we became frightened-because he began to talk to mother. It was the forty-ninth day after mother's death,-the day the Soul leaves the house; and brother spoke as if mother was calling him:-'Yes, mother, yes!—in a little while I shall come!' Then he told us that mother was pulling him by the sleeve. He would point with his hand and call to us:-"There she is!-there!-do you not see her?' We would tell him that we could

not see anything.

Then he would say, 'Ah! you did not look quick enough: she is hiding now;-she has gone down under the floor-mats.' All the morning he talked like that. At last grandmother stood up, and stamped her foot on the floor, and reproached mother, -speaking very loud. 'Taka!' she said, 'Taka, what

you do is very wrong.

When you were alive we all

loved you. None of us ever spoke unkind words to you. Why do you now want to take the boy? You know that he is the only pillar of our house. You know that if you take him there will not be anyone to care for the ancestors. You know that if you take him, you will destroy the family name! O Taka, it is cruel! it is shameful! it is wicked!' Grandmother was so angry that all her body trembled. Then she sat down and cried; and I and my little sister cried. But our brother said that mother was still pulling him by the sleeve. When the sun went down, he died.

"Grandmother wept, and stroked us, and sang a little song that she made herself. I can remember it

still:

Oya no nai ko to

Hamabé no chidori:

Higuré-higuré ni

Sodé shiboru.*

"So the third grave was made, but it was not a ningyō-no-haka;-and that was the end of our house. We lived with kindred until winter, when grandmother died. She died in the night,-when, nobody knew: in the morning she seemed to be sleeping, but she was dead. Then I and my little sister were separated. My sister was adopted by a tatamiya, à mat-maker,—one of father's friends. She is kindly treated: she even goes to school!"

"Aa fushigi na koto da!—aa komatta ne?" mur› mured Manyemon. Then there was a moment or two of sympathetic silence. Iné prostrated herself in thanks, and rose to depart. As she slipped her feet under the thongs of her sandals, I moved toward the spot where

* "Children without parents, like the seagulls of the coast. Evening after evening the sleeves are wrung." The word chidori -indiscriminately applied to many kinds of birds,—is here used for seagull. The cries of the seagull are thought to express melancholy and desolation: hence the comparison. The long sleeve of the Japanese robe is used to wipe the eyes as well as to hide the face in moments of grief. To "wring the sleeve”—that is, to wring the moisture from a tear-drenched sleeve-is a frequent expression in Japanese poetry.

Gleanings in Buddha-Fields.

she had been sitting, to ask the old man a question. She perceived my intention, and immediately made an indescribable sign to Manyemon, who responded by checking me just as I was going to sit down beside him. "She wishes," he said, "that the master will honourably strike the matting first."

"But why?" I asked in surprise,-noticing only that under my unshod feet, the spot where the child had been kneeling felt comfortably warm.

Manyemon answered:

"She believes that to sit down upon the place made warm by the body of another is to take into one's own life all the sorrow of that other person,-unless the place be stricken first."

Whereat I sat down without performing the rite; and we both laughed.

"Iné," said Manyemon, "the master takes your sorrows upon him. . He wants"-(I cannot venture to render Manyemon's honorifics)-"to understand the pain of other people. You need not fear for him, Iné.”

VII.

IN OSAKA.

Takaki ya ni

Noborité mireba

Kemuri tatsu;

Tami no kamado wa

Nigiwai ni kéri.

(When I ascend a high place and look about me, lo! the smoke is rising: the cooking ranges of the people are busy.)

Song of the Emperor NINTOKU.

I.

NEARLY three hundred years ago, Captain John Saris, visiting Japan in the service of the "Right Honourable Companye, ye. marchants of London trading into ye. East Indyes," wrote concerning the great city of Ōsaka (as the name is now transliterated):-"We found Osaca to be a very great towne, as great as London within the walls, with many faire timber bridges of a great height, seruing to passe ouer a riuer there as wide as the Thames at London. Some faire houses we