d home except Koremitz, who accompanied
him. They peeped at this building through the hedges. In the western
antechamber of the house was placed an image of Buddha, and here an
evening service was performed. A nun, raising a curtain before
Buddha, offered a garland of flowers on the altar, and placing a Kio
(or Sutra, i.e., Buddhist Bible) on her "arm-stool," proceeded to read
it. She seemed to be rather more than forty years old. Her face was
rather round, and her appearance was noble. Her hair was thrown back
from her forehead and was cut short behind, which suited her very
well. She was, however, pale and weak, her voice, also, being
tremulous. Two maiden attendants went in and out of the room waiting
upon her, and a little girl ran into the room with them. She was about
ten years old or more, and wore a white silk dress, which fitted her
well and which was lined with yellow. Her hair was waved like a fan,
and her eyes were red from crying. "What is the matter? Have you
quarrelled with the boy?" exclaimed the nun, looking at her. There was
some resemblance between the features of the child and the nun, so
Genji thought that she possibly might be her daughter.

"Inuki has lost my sparrow, which I kept so carefully in the cage,"
replied the child.

"That stupid boy," said one of the attendants. "Has he again been the
cause of this? Where can the bird be gone? And all this, too, after we
had tamed it with so much care." She then left the room, possibly to
look for the lost bird. The people who addressed her called her
Shionagon, and she appeared to have been the little girl's nurse.

"To you," said the nun to the girl, "the sparrow may be dearer than I
may be, who am so ill; but have I not told you often that the caging
of birds is a sin? Be a good girl; come nearer!"

The girl advanced and stood silent before her, her face being bathed
in tears. The contour of the child-like forehead and of the small and
graceful head was very pleasing. Genji, as he surveyed the scene from
without, thought within himself, "If she is thus fair in her girlhood,
what will she be when she is grown up?" One reason why Genji was so
much attracted by her was, that she greatly resembled a certain lady
in the Palace, to whom he, for a long time, had been fondly attached.
The nun stroked the beautiful hair of the child and murmured to
herself, "How splendid it looks! Would that she would always strive to
keep it thus. Her extreme youth makes