"The gods of Nippon divinely change not their habit," returned the woman. "Also my vile intellect can not comprehend why the foreigners' God should illustriously concern Himself with the things of another land."
"The Christian Divinity," said Haru, "is a God of all lands and all peoples."
The other mused. "It passes in my degraded mind that He, then, would lack a sublime all-sympathy for our Kingdom-of-Slender-Swords. You are transcendently young, Ojo-San, but I am thirty-two, and I hold by the gods of my ancestors."
"Honorably present my greetings to your husband," Haru said, as she bowed her adieu. "May his exalted person soon attain divine health! To-morrow I will send another book for him to read."
The woman watched her go, with a smile on her tired face—the Japanese smile that covers so many things. She looked at the baby's face on the pillow. "Praise Shaka," she said aloud, "there is millet yet for another week. Then we must give up the shop. Well—I can play the samisen, and the gods are not dead!"
Behind her a diminutive figure had lifted himself upright from a f'ton. He came forward from the gloom, his single sleeping-robe trailing comically and his great black eyes round and serious. "Why must we give up the shop, honorable mother?"
"Go to sleep, Ishikichi," said his mother. "Trouble me not so late with your rude prattle."
"But why, Okka-San?"
"Because rent-money exists not, small pigeon," she answered gently. "So long as we have ignobly lived here, we have paid the banto who brings his joy-giving presence on the first of each month. Now we have no more money and can not pay."
"Why have we no more money?"