inment of his visitors, every art had been
exhausted in its adornment. The screens were objects of beauty, and
separated the large rooms with their fine pillars and ceilings of
grained and polished woods. The _rama-sho[u]ji_ were carved by Nature's
handiwork, and the polished lacquer and brass reflected a thousand times
the beauties roundabout. Whether the garden be viewed from the
apartments, or both from the _tsukiyama_ or artificial hill beside the
little lake, it was a scene of balanced beauty, showing every nicety of
man's hand in Nature's own proportion, and not guided into the
geometrical designs of a carpet square or a surveyor's working table.
Instead of the dry dullness of a provincial town, in which themselves
they had to fill the stage to give it life and pompousness, Edo was
close at hand, and they were part of, and actors in, the luxury and
magnificence of the Sho[u]gun's court. It is not surprising that the
_himegimi_ returned to all this glitter and activity as one long
banished from its seductions to a wilderness; added her own dissipation
and lavish entertainment to the constant round of festivity and luxury
rapidly supplanting the hard military discipline of the first
Sho[u]gun's camp; a luxury itself to crystallize into a gorgeous rigid
formalism, as deadly to the one not meeting its requirements as the
lined and spotted beauty of some poisonous serpent.

The wine feast was at its height. The cup passed more freely in this
chilly season of the year; and in the tightly closed apartments the
warmth of association and the table's cheer were sought. The _himegimi_
was more expansive than usual under the influence of the wine. Iki was
positively drunk, and in his state over-estimated the condition of her
ladyship. Takeo was serving the wine. Beyond stolen interviews of
moments the lovers had found no opportunity for the longed for clinging
of soul to soul, of person to person, during the night's long hours. The
girl's hands trembled with passion as furtively she sought those of her
lover in the passing of the wine cup. Iki was absolutely careless. Her
ladyship too far gone to note his conduct? He seized the arms of Takeo
and drew her to his side. The display of amorous emotion on the part of
both was too open to escape notice. The _himegimi_ rose to her feet as
on springs. The beautiful flushed face took on a deeper tint as she
scowled on the guilty and now frightened pair. Her breath came hard and
with d