and incomprehensible objects of religious use.

Quaint little creatures, choir boys or pupils, come forward with a
doubtful welcome to ask what is wanted.

"_Matsou-San!! Donata-San!!_" they repeat, much astonished, when they
understand to whom we wish to be conducted. Oh! no, impossible, they
cannot be seen; they are resting or are in contemplation. "_Orimas!
Orimas!_" say they, clasping their hands and sketching a genuflection
or two to make us understand better. (They are at prayer! the most
profound prayer!)

We insist, speak more imperatively; even slip off our shoes like
people determined to take no refusal.

At last Matsou-San and Donata-San make their appearance from the
tranquil depths of their bonze-house. They are dressed in black crape
and their heads are shaved. Smiling, amiable, full of excuses, they
offer us their hands, and we follow with our feet bare like theirs to
the interior of their mysterious dwelling, through a series of empty
rooms spread with mats of the most unimpeachable whiteness. The
successive halls are separated one from the other only by bamboo
curtains of exquisite delicacy, caught back by tassels and cords of
red silk.

The whole wainscoting of the interior is of the same wood, of a pale
yellow color joinered with extreme nicety, without the least ornament,
the least carving; everything seems new and unused, as though it had
never been touched by human hand. At distant intervals in this studied
bareness, costly little stools, marvelously inlaid, uphold some