"I shall send it to Geoffrey," thought Asako; "it will bring him good luck. Perhaps he will write to me and thank me. Then I can write to him." The New Year is the greatest of Japanese festivals. Japanese of the middle and lower classes live all the year round in a thickening web of debt. But during the last days of the year these complications are supposed to be unraveled and the defaulting debtor must sell some of his family goods, and start the New Year with a clean slate. These operations swell the stock-in-trade of the _yomisé_. On New Year's Day the wife prepares the _mochi_ cakes of ground rice, which are the specialities of the season; and the husband sees to the erection of his door posts of the two _kadomatsu_ (corner pine trees), little Christmas trees planted in a coil of rope. Then, attired in his frock-coat and top hat, if he be a _haikara_ gentleman, or in his best kimono and _haori_, if he be an old-fashioned Japanese, he goes round in a rickshaw to pay his complimentary calls, and to exchange _o medet[=o]_ (respectfully lucky!), the New Year wish. He has presents for his important patrons, and cards for his less influential acquaintances. For, as the Japanese proverb says, "Gifts preserve friendship." At each house, which he visits, he sips a cup of _saké_, so that his return home is often due to the rickshaw man's assistance, rather than to his own powers of self-direction. In fact, as Asako's maid confided to her mistress, "Japanese wife very happy when New Year time all finish." * * * * * On the night following New Year, snow fell. It continued to fall all the next morning until Asako's little garden was as white as a bride-cake. The irregularities of her river-side lawn were smoothed out under the white carpet. The straw coverings, which a gardener's foresight had wrapped round the azalea shrubs and the dwarf conifers, were enfolded in a thick white shroud. Like tufts of foam on a wave, the snow was tossed on the plumes of the bamboo clump, which hid the neighbour's dwelling, and made a bird's nest of Asako's tiny domain. Beyond the brown sluggish river, the roofs and pinnacles of Asakusa were more fairy-like than a theatre scene. Asako was thinking of that first snow-white day, which introduced Geoffrey and her to the Embassy and to Yaé Smith. She shivered. Darkness was falling. A Japanese house is a frail protection in winter time; and a charcoal fire in a wooden box is poor company. The maid came in to close the shutters for the night. Where was Tanaka? He had gone out to a New Year party with relatives. Asako felt her loneliness all of a sudden; and she was grateful for the moral comfort of cousin Sadako's sword. She drew it from its sheath and examined the blade, and the fine work on the hilt, with care and alarm, like a man fingering a serpent.