ife. But, without your consent, I could not
answer her proposal. What do you think about it?"

The young farmer, though highly complimented, at first said little,
but he thought hard. "Daintily reared, and perhaps of noble birth is
she, but should I gratify her desire, how can she bear the poverty to
which we are accustomed? Will she be patient, when she has to suffer
hunger? Or, shall we be separated, and that which promises love and
happiness last only a little while, to pass away, leaving gloom and
sorrow behind?"

But as the days slipped along, and when he saw how kind she was to her
new mother, ever patient and self-denying in loving reverence, all his
fears were driven away like clouds before the wind. So the young man
and woman were married.

But when the full autumn-time came for the rice ears to fill and round
out, nothing was found but husk and shell. The crop was a total
failure. With heavy taxes unpaid and no food in the house, starvation
loomed before them. By winter, all were in dire distress.

Then the patient wife revealed new powers and cheered her husband,
saying,

"I can spin such cloth as was never made in this province, if you will
build me a separate room. I cannot weave here, or make the fine
pattern of red and white except when alone and in perfect silence.
Build me a room, and the money you need will flow in."

The old mother was doubtful as to her daughter-in-law's project and
even Musai was but half-hearted. Yet he went to work diligently. With
beam, and wattle, and thatch, floor of mats and window of latticed
paper, with walls made tight because well daubed with clay, he built
the room apart. There alone, day by day, secluded from all, the sweet
wife toiled unseen. The mother and husband patiently waited, until
after a week, the little woman rejoined the family circle. In her
hands she bore a roll of woven stuff, white and shining, as lustrous
and pure as fresh fallen snow. Yet here and there, a crimson thread in
the stuff did but intensify the purity of the otherwise unflecked
whiteness. Pure red and pure white were the only colours of this
wonderful fabric.

"What shall we call it?" inquired the amazed husband.

"It has no name, for there is none other in the world like it," said
the fair weaver.

"But I must have a name. I shall take it to the Daimio. He will not
buy, if he does not know how it is called."

"Then," said the wife, "tell him its name is 'White Crane's-down
clot