[ [16] Running footman.
[ [17] The name given to a class of fortune-teller.
"I feel as if I were leaving the Occidental, the modern existence behind me. It is all so old-world and weird," whispered Muriel to her mother, as they proceeded from under the gateway and entered the quaint, well-kept garden.
It was a lovely, poetical little garden, restful and secluded. Its many narrow paths were paved with grey pebbles, and in the centre of a plot of bright green turf was a miniature lake or pond edged with divers shrubs of various sizes and shapes. Uprising from the lake was a tiny island, on which flourished equally tiny and twisted maple, plum and cherry trees, shrined by one gnarled and quaint shaped pine, many centuries old. Floating on the surface of the little pond, and swaying gracefully in the summer breeze, were regal lotus plants, some bearing, amidst their glossy cup-shaped leaves, giant flowers of soft rose-pink, while other plants were crowned with marvellous white blossoms, standing erect on their long stems.
August is the month in which the lotus plants are in full and glorious flower, and the travellers were in raptures at the richness of growth, their delicate loveliness, as their eyes rested on this entrancing and, to them, unknown sight. The party lingered long on the large flat stones that forming a natural bridge, traversed the pond, gazing with unbounded admiration at these unrivalled bell-shaped flowers. The colossal leaves of green almost as striking as the lovely blossoms themselves, were full to overflowing of glistening dewdrops, that sparkled like diamonds in the afternoon sun, as the plants swayed gracefully above the water with every breath of the quiet air.
The Millward-Frazer family at length tore themselves away from admiring these lovely blossoms and left the garden. The party passed through the grotesquely carved porch of the old-fashioned building, with its many gabled, peaked Chinese roof, and were received by a servant, who, after greeting them kneeling and with her forehead touching the threshold of the doorway, rose, assisted in taking off their shoes, and finally ushered them into a fairly sized Japanese room. The shoji were wide open, acting as a simple frame to the picturesque garden without, its gnarled and twisted trees, its ancient stones and lanterns, and its pond of slumbering lotus blooms.
In the middle of the matted room, which--with the exception of the little shrine before which the evening and morning prayers are offered up--was almost devoid of furniture, was a square lacquer table that rose about a couple of feet from the floor, and on which was piled a heap of ancient volumes. Before the table, with huge horn spectacles perched on his nose, and with a glistening and entirely shaven pate, was squatting on his heels, a wrinkled and solemn looking Bonze of benign countenance, holding upright in his hand a partly opened fan. He was adorned in the richest vestments of purple silk, which stuck out in stiff, straight lines around his bending body.
As each of the visitors filed in, filling the little room, the old priest from behind his great round spectacles examined them from head to foot with the piercing eye of an eagle. His glance finally fell and rested on the interpreter of the Legation, a young man whom Stanislas had recently appointed to fill the post left empty by poor Suzuki's tragic death.
From studying the impassive face of Ito, the old man's eyes travelled to de Güldenfeldt, on whom they remained, though the latter made vain attempts to keep himself as far as possible in the background.
The Bonze, never once taking his eyes from Stanislas, murmured something to Ito in a low and impressive manner.