Her appearance did credit to the labor of Aoi. She seemed such a bewitching, quaint little figure—her face, piquantly pretty, her hair shining, the red flower ornament matching her little red cheeks and lips. A moment later, too, the discontent and restlessness had quite fled from her face, for Koma had seized her the instant of her release and given her an enormous hug, to the palpitating anxiety of Aoi, who besought him to be careful not to disturb the elegance of her hair and gown.
“Now,” she told them, “go sit at the door like good children. Keep very still. Soon your mother will also be ready.”
Aoi expended less pains upon her own person. Her hair erection needed no re-dressing. She changed her cotton kimono for a very elegant silken one, powdered her face lightly in a trice, and a moment later was at the door, anxiously looking about for the children.
She was still a young woman, so pretty that it was hard to believe her the mother of a boy of sixteen. Her figure was slight and girlish, her face unmarked by any trace of age, save that the eyes were sad and anxious and the lips had a tendency to quiver pathetically. She fluttered down the little garden-path, looking right and left for the truants.
She discovered them bending over the great well in the garden.
“See,” said little Hyacinth. “There’s big cherry-tree in well, and little girl under it, also.”
Aoi looked at the reflection, lingered a moment, smiling pensively at the three faces in the water, then drew them away.
“Come,” she said. “Listen; those temple bells already are beginning to ring. We shall be late and disgrace his excellency.”
She opened a large paper parasol, and with Koma holding her sleeve on one side and Hyacinth on the other, they tripped up the hill to the little mission church.
They were late, as usual, to the extreme humiliation of Aoi, who shrank to the most obscure corner possible in the church. She gave one anxious, fluttering glance about her, shook her head at the restless Hyacinth, then very simply and naturally lifted her little, thin voice in singing with the rest of this strange congregation.