The Lady Abbess was a pious woman, the head of a convent of holy nuns. She was the great one at prayers and meditations and at mortifyings of the flesh, and she was the clever one, none the less, at human affairs. They took her the mirror, and she held it in her hands and looked into it for a long time. At last she spoke:
“This poor woman,” she said, touching the mirror, “for it’s as plain as daylight that it is a woman—this poor woman was so troubled in her mind at the disturbance that she caused in a quiet house, that she has taken vows, shaved her head, and become a holy nun. Thus she is in her right place here. I will keep her, and instruct her in prayers and meditations. Go you home, my children; forgive and forget, be friends.”
Then all the people said, “The Lady Abbess is the wise woman.”
And she kept the mirror in her treasure.
Mistress Tassel and her husband went home hand in hand.
“So I was right, you see, after all,” she said.
“Yes, yes, my dear,” said the simple young man, “of course. But I was wondering how my old father would get on at the holy convent. He was never much of a one for religion.”
XI
THE STORY OF SUSA, THE IMPETUOUS
When Izanagi, the Lord who Invites, turned his back upon the unclean place, and bade farewell to Yomi, the World of the Dead, whither he had journeyed upon a quest, he beheld once more the Land of Fresh Rice Ears, and was glad. And he rested by the side of a clear river that he might perform purification.