eveloped
to their highest extent. With the qualities of gentleness and delicacy
possessed by these ladies, which make them shrink from rough contact
with the outer world, there are mingled the stronger qualities of moral
and physical courage. A daimi[=o]'s wife, as befitted the wife of a
warrior and the daughter of long generations of brave men, never shrank
from facing danger and death when necessary; and considered the taking
of her own life an honorable and easy escape from being captured by her
enemy.

Two or three little ripples from the past broke into my life in
T[=o]ky[=o], giving a little insight into those old feudal times, and
the customs that were common then, but that are now gone forever. A
story was told me in Japan by a lady who had herself, as a child,
witnessed the events narrated. It illustrates the responsibility felt by
the retainers for their lord and his house. A daimi[=o] fell into
disgrace with the Sh[=o]gun, and was banished to his own capital,--a
castle town several days' journey from Yedo,--as a punishment for some
offense. The castle gates were closed, and no communication with the
outer world allowed. During this period of disgrace, it happened that
the noble fell ill, and died quite suddenly before his punishment was
ended. His death under such circumstances was the most terrible thing
that could befall either himself or his family, as his funeral must be
without the ordinary tokens of respect; and his tombstone, instead of
bearing tribute to his virtues, and the favor in which he had been held
by his lord, must be simply the monument of his disgrace. This being the
case, the retainers felt that these evils must be averted at any cost.
Knowing that the Sh[=o]gun's anger was probably not so great as to make
him wish to bring eternal disgrace to their dead lord, they at once
decided to send a messenger to the Sh[=o]gun, begging for pardon on the
plea of desperate illness, and asking the restoration of his favor
before the approach of death. The death was not announced, but the floor
of the room in which the man had died was lifted up, and the body let
down to the ground beneath; and through all the town it was announced
that the daimi[=o] was hopelessly ill. Forty days passed before the
Sh[=o]gun sent to the retainers the token that the disgrace was removed,
and during all those forty days, in castle and barrack and village, the
fiction of the daimi[=o]'s illness was kept up. As soon as the