The selection took a week or two, and at last my maid told me that Yasaku's wife was coming by the next morning's train. A look into the _bettō's_ quarters in the stable showed great preparations for the bride. The mats, new-covered with nice straw matting, were white and clean; the _shoji_ were mended with new paper; the walls covered with bright-colored pictures; and various new domestic conveniences had nearly bankrupted Yasaku, in spite of his large salary of ten dollars a month. He had ordered a fine feast at a neighboring tea house, had had cards printed with his own name in English and Japanese, and had altogether been to such great expense that he had had to put his winter clothes in pawn to secure the necessary money. The day chosen for the marriage was rainy, and, though Yasaku spent all his time in going to trains, no bridal party appeared; and he came home at night disconsolate, to smoke his good-night pipe over his solitary _hibachi_. He was, no doubt, angry as well as disconsolate, for he sat down and penned a severe letter to his father, in which he said that, if the bride did not appear on the next day counted lucky for a wedding (no Japanese would be married on an unlucky day), they could send her back to her father's house, for he would none of her. This letter did its work, for on the next lucky day, about ten days later, the bride appeared, and Yasaku was given two days of holiday on the agreement that he should not be married again while he remained in my service. On the evening of the second day, the bride came in to pay me her respects, and, crouching on her hands and knees before me, literally trembled under the excitement of her first introduction to a foreigner. She was a girl of rather unattractive exterior, fat and heavy, and rather older than Yasaku had bargained for, I imagine; at any rate, from the first, he seemed dissatisfied with his "pig in a poke," and after a couple of months sent her home to her parents, and was all ready to start out again in the hope of better luck next time.