about a separation. Anyhow, when my mistress heard that you had died, she wanted to cut off her hair immediately, and to become a nun. But I was able to prevent her from cutting off her hair; and I persuaded her at last to become a nun only in her heart. Afterwards her father wished her to marry a certain young man; and she refused. Then there was a great deal of trouble,—chiefly caused by O-Kuni;—and we went away from the villa, and found a very small house in Yanaka-no-Sasaki. There we are now just barely able to live, by doing a little private work. . . . My mistress has been constantly repeating the Nembutsu for your sake. To-day, being the first day of the Bon, we went to visit the temples; and we were on our way home—thus late—when this strange meeting happened.”
“Oh, how extraordinary!” cried Shinzaburō. “Can it be true?—or is it only a dream? Here I, too, have been constantly reciting the Nembutsu before a tablet with her name upon it! Look!” And he showed them O-Tsuyu’s tablet in its place upon the Shelf of Souls.
“We are more than grateful for your kind remembrance,” returned O-Yoné, smiling. . . .
