festival, perceived in the crowd a young samurai of remarkable
beauty, and immediately fell in love with him. Unhappily for her, he
disappeared in the press before she could learn through her
attendants who he was or whence he had come. But his image remained
vivid in her memory,--even to the least detail of his costume. The
holiday attire then worn by samurai youths was scarcely less
brilliant than that of young girls; and the upper dress of this
handsome stranger had seemed wonderfully beautiful to the enamoured
maiden. She fancied that by wearing a robe of like quality and
color, bearing the same crest, she might be able to attract his
notice on some future occasion.

Accordingly she had such a robe made, with very long sleeves,
according to the fashion of the period; and she prized it
greatly. She wore it whenever she went out; and when at home she
would suspend it in her room, and try to imagine the form of her
unknown beloved within it. Sometimes she would pass hours before
it,--dreaming and weeping by turns. And she would pray to the
gods and the Buddhas that she might win the young man's
affection,--often repeating the invocation of the Nichiren sect:
Namu myo ho renge kyo!

But she never saw the youth again; and she pined with longing for
him, and sickened, and died, and was buried. After her burial,
the long-sleeved robe that she had so much prized was given to
the Buddhist temple of which her family were parishioners. It is
an old custom to thus dispose of the garments of the dead.

The priest was able to sell the robe at a good price; for it was
a costly silk, and bore no trace of the tears that had fallen