5

There were snow and sleet to add to the gloom. What sort of legacy was hers from other lives, asked the lady, that she must put up with so much in this one? She spent more time than ever with the little girl, combing her hair, changing her clothes. On a dark morning of drifting snows she went to the veranda and gazed out at the ice on the river, and thought of what was past and what was to come. It was not like her to expose herself so. She preferred the inner rooms of the house. Warmed by several soft white robes, she sat lost in thought; and the molding of her head and the flow of her hair and robes made her women feel sure that the noblest lady in the land could not be lovelier.

She brushed away a tear and said to the nurse: “This sort of weather will be even more trying now.

“These mountain paths will be closed by snow and clouds.

Do not, I pray you, let your tracks be lost.”

The nurse replied:

“And were you to move to deepest Yoshino,

I still would find you, through unceasing snow.”