About two miles farther north, in the great _rus urba_ of Yedo, was another house of humbler pretensions, and yet one with a gate and garden of dimensions betokening the residence of a man of rank. It was the home of Nakayama, one of the eighty thousand _hatamoto_ (vassals) of the Shô-gun, a studious gentleman whose greatest pride was in his two sons and his only daughter. The former were not only manly and expert in the use of the sword and spear, but had the best education that the classics of Confucius and the Chinese college and literati in Yedo could give them. Next to them in his love was his only daughter Kiku, seventeen years old, and as fair as the fairest of Yedo's many fair daughters. No vain doll was Kiku, but, inheriting her mother's beauty, she added to it the inner grace of a meek and dutiful spirit. Besides being deft at household duties, her memory was well stored with the knowledge of Japanese history and the Chinese classics. She had committed to memory the entire books of the _Woman's Great Learning_, and had read carefully five other works on etiquette and morals which her father had presented to her on successive birthdays. Kiku was a remarkably well-educated maiden, and would have been a prize for the richest daimio in the empire. Faithfully following Japanese etiquette, Kiku had been carefully kept from the company of any of the male sex since her eighth year. She never talked with any young man except her brothers. Occasionally at family parties she was addressed by her uncles or cousins. Sometimes, when gentlemen called to see her father, Kiku would bring tea to the guest, and was thus made the subject of compliments; but as to "receiving" male company, she never did it. Kiku never went out unless accompanied by her mother or the maid, who was like her shadow. The gods of Japan meet together at the great temples in Ise during the eleventh month and tie all the nuptial knots for the following year. Kiku's marriage-knot had been tied by the gods six months before she even suspected the strings had been crossed. How happened it?