f the
head; and the priest, rising, opened the top drawer. It was empty.
Successively he opened the second, the third, and the fourth
drawer;--he searched carefully behind them and beneath them;--he
carefully examined the interior of the chest. He found nothing. But the
figure remained gazing as wistfully as before. "What can she want?"
thought the priest. Suddenly it occurred to him that there might be
something hidden under the paper with which the drawers were lined. He
removed the lining of the first drawer:--nothing! He removed the lining
of the second and third drawers:--still nothing. But under the lining
of the lowermost drawer he found--a letter. "Is this the thing about
which you have been troubled?" he asked. The shadow of the woman turned
toward him,--her faint gaze fixed upon the letter. "Shall I burn it for
you?" he asked. She bowed before him. "It shall be burned in the temple
this very morning," he promised;--"and no one shall read it, except
myself." The figure smiled and vanished.

Dawn was breaking as the priest descended the stairs, to find the
family waiting anxiously below. "Do not be anxious," he said to them:
"She will not appear again." And she never did.

The letter was burned. It was a love-letter written to O-Sono in the
time of her studies at Kyoto. But the priest alone knew what was in it;
and the secret died with him.

YUKI-ONNA

In a village of Musashi Province (1), there lived two woodcutters:
Mosaku and Minokichi. At the time of which I am speaking, Mosaku was an
old man; and Minokichi, his apprentice, was a lad of eighteen years.
Every day they went together to a forest situated about five miles from
their village. On the way to that forest there is a wide river to
cross; and there is a ferry-boat. Several times a bridge was built
where the ferry is; but the bridge was each time carried away by a
flood. No common bridge can resist the current there when the river
rises.

Mosaku and Minokichi were on their way home, one very cold evening,
when a great snowstorm overtook them. They reached the ferry; and they
found that the boatman had gone away, leaving his boat on the other
side of the river. It was no day for swimming; and the woodcutters took
shelter in the ferryman's hut,--thinking themselves lucky to find any
shelter at all. There was no brazier in the hut, nor any place in which
to make a fire: it was only a two-mat [1] hut, with a single door, but
no window. Mo