“What is your name?” he asked.
“My name is O’Yuki.”
“O’Yuki,” said the young man, “you look very pale.”
“Alas! sir,” she murmured, “I faint with the heat of this summer day.” And as she stood in the path her slender body swayed, and she slid to his feet in a swoon.
The young man lifted her gently, and carried her in his arms to his mother’s house. Her head lay upon his breast, and as he looked upon her face, he shivered slightly.
“All the same,” he said to himself, “these summer days turn chilly about sundown, or so it seems to me.”
When O’Yuki was recovered of her swoon, she thanked the young man and his mother sweetly for their kindness, and as she had little strength to continue her journey, she passed the night in their house. In truth she passed many nights there, and the streets of Yedo never knew her, for the young man grew to love her, and made her his wife ere many moons were out. Daily she became more beautiful—fair she was, and white. Her little hands, for all she used them for work in the house and work in the fields, were as white as jasmine flowers; the hot sun could not burn her neck, or her pale and delicate cheek. In the fulness of time she bore seven children, all as fair as she, and they grew up tall and strong with straight noble limbs; their equal could not be found upon that country-side. Their mother loved them, reared them, laboured for them. In spite of passing years, in spite of the joys and pains of motherhood, she looked like a slender maiden; there came no line upon her forehead, no dimness to her eyes, and no grey hairs.
All the women of the place marvelled at these things, and talked of them till they were tired. But O’Yuki’s husband was the happiest man for miles round, what with his fair wife and his fair children. Morning and evening he prayed and said, “Let not the gods visit it upon me if I have too much joy.”
On a certain evening in winter, O’Yuki, having put her children to bed and warmly covered them, was with her husband in the next room. The charcoal glowed in the hibachi; all the doors of the house were closely shut, for it was bitter cold, and outside the first big flakes of a snow-storm had begun to fall. O’Yuki stitched diligently at little bright-coloured garments. An andon stood on the floor beside her, and its light fell full upon her face.
Her husband looked at her, musing....