2

The governor had numerous children by a former wife, now dead. By his present wife he had a daughter who was known as Himegimi,+ much pampered, and five or six other children, all of them very young. His affections monopolized by the others, he tended to treat the Eighth Prince's daughter, Ukifune,# like an outsider. The mother greatly resented this partiality, and the thought never left her mind of shaming them all by finding a splendid husband for the girl. She would not have fretted so had Ukifune been no prettier than the others—she was, after all, legally the governor's daughter. But her beauty and grace were more pronounced as she grew older. How deplorable, thought the mother, that they should go unnoticed.

Aware that the family was well supplied with daughters, several men from the ranks of the petty nobility had indicated an interest in one or another of them. Even now, with two or three of the older girls already married, the governor's wife refused to abandon her high hopes for Ukifune, who was the center of her life.