cannot meet for three or four years at a time. But their love remains
immortally young and eternally patient; and they continue to fulfill
their respective duties each day without fault,--happy in their hope
of being able to meet on the seventh night of the next seventh month.

* * * * *

To ancient Chinese fancy, the Milky Way was a luminous river,--the
River of Heaven,--the Silver Stream. It has been stated by Western
writers that Tanabata, the Weaving-Lady, is a star in Lyra; and the
Herdsman, her beloved, a star in Aquila, on the opposite side of the
galaxy. But it were more correct to say that both are represented, to
Far-Eastern imagination, by groups of stars. An old Japanese book puts
the matter thus plainly: "Kengy[=u] (the Ox-Leader) is on the west
side of the Heavenly River, and is represented by three stars in a
row, and looks like a man leading an ox. Shokujo (the Weaving-Lady)
is on the east side of the Heavenly River: three stars so placed as
to appear like the figure of a woman seated at her loom.... The former
presides over all things relating to agriculture; the latter, over all
that relates to women's work."

* * * * *

In an old book called Zatsuwa-Shin, it is said that these deities
were of earthly origin. Once in this world they were man and wife,
and lived in China; and the husband was called Ishi, and the wife
Hakuy[=o]. They especially and most devoutly reverenced the Moon.
Every clear evening, after sundown, they waited with eagerness to see
her rise. And when she began to sink towards the horizon, they would
climb to the top of a hill near their house, so that they might be