r wear; bath and sleeping
robes with great designs of flowers, birds, or landscapes; silken
bed-quilts and bright floor cushions; great sashes crusted like bark
with patternings of gold; dainty toilet accessories of hairpins,
girdles, collarettes, shopping-bags, purses, jewel-cases,--and new
sandals of various sorts, each with velvet thongs of some delicate hue.

The sewing was, of course, done at home. Mata would have trusted this
sacred rite to no domination but her own. She worked incessantly,
planning, cutting, scolding,--hurrying off to the shopping district for
some forgotten item, conferring with Ando Uchida about the details of
Tatsu's outfit, then returning, flushed with success and importance, to
new home triumphs.

Ume sewed steadily all day. Her painting materials had been put meekly
aside, and, as a further precaution at old Mata's hands, hidden under
the kitchen flooring. Toward the last it was found necessary to employ
an assistant, a seamstress, known of old to Mata. Her companionship,
as well as her sewing, proved a boon. Seated upon the springy matting,
with waves of shimmering silk tumultuous about them, the old dames
chatted incessantly of other brides and other wedding outfits they had
known. Marvellous were their tales of married life, some of them
designed to cheer, others to warn the silent little third figure, that
of the bride-to-be. As a matter of fact, Ume never listened. The
noise and buzz of incessant conversation affected her pleasantly, but
remotely, as the chatter of distant sparrows. The girl had too much
within herself to think of.

"May Kwannon have mercy upon my young mistress," sighed the nurse, one
day, as Ume left the room.

"Does she require mercy? I thought--she appears to me
honorably--er--undisturbed," ventured the seamstress, with one swift
upward look of interest.

"Yes, she appears,--many of us appear,--but can she be happy? That is
what I wish to know. The creature she is being forced to marry is more
like a mountain-lion than a man!"

"Ma-a-a! Is he dangerous? Will he bite her?" questioned the other,
hopefully.

"Amida alone knows what he will do with her," croaked Mata, in a
sepulchral voice.

The subject was one not to be readily relinquished. "The facts being
honorably as you relate," began the hired seamstress, her needle held
carefully against the light for threading, "how is it that the august
father of the illustrious young lady permits s