"It's an old shrine," continued Mary. "Komatsu says it's to the
Compassionate God, Jizu. He's sitting cross-legged in a little niche in
the hillside below the bridge and he has a beautiful frame of clematis
vines around him. I think he's delightful."

O'Kami San was unable to grasp the meaning of this rapid fire of words,
at least it seemed to her to be a rapid fire. Most people are under the
impression that a foreign language is spoken faster than their own. But
she trotted along beside the others, always with the same polite,
intelligent smile, as if she understood every word.

Having crossed the bridge, they followed a narrow path through a grove of
pine trees. The path took an unexpected curve to the right and led them
around the side of a grassy embankment under which sat the stone image of
the Compassionate God, Jizu. The inscrutable smile of the nation hovered
on the lips of the ancient idol, and his compassionate stone eyes looked
out upon the green little world around him with a gentle tolerance. Time
and tempests had worn away his arms and softened the outlines of his
stone countenance. He was indeed a graven image of kindly mien and of a
certain majesty of expression.

But there was, another visitor at the shrine of the Compassionate God.
She lay flat on her face in a tumbled, many-colored little heap before
the gray old image at whose feet was her offering: a pitiful little bunch
of wild roses. She had been sobbing. It was easy to tell. The storm of
weeping had passed now and she lay quite still, but at intervals there
was that catch in the breath which follows a period of bitter crying.

The three American girls paused at the edge of the miniature lawn about