She did not answer for a moment. Nothing in her cried out at this reiterated complaint, for she was of the same blood. If she had been a son, that wound in her father's heart had been healed. Through her arm the family would have fought. Her glorious death-name might even now be written on an _ihai_ on the Buddha-shelf, her glad soul swelling the numbers of that ghostly legion whose spiritual force was the true vitality of her nation. "Perhaps that, too, might be," she said presently in a low voice. "Should I augustly marry one not of too exalted a station, he could receive adoption into our family." He looked into her deeply flushing face. "You think of the Lieutenant Ishida Hétaro," he said. "It is true that the go-between has already deigned to sit on my hard mats. He is, I think, in every way worthy of our house. I would rather he were in the field, with a sword in his hand--I know not much of this 'Secret Service.' What are his present duties? Doubtless"--with a spark of mischief in his hollow, old eyes--"you are better informed than I." "He is in the household of one named Bersonin, a man-mountain like our wrestlers, whose service Japan pays with a wage." His seamed face clouded. "To cunningly watch the foreigner's incomings and his outgoings, and make august report to the Board of Extraordinary Information," he said, with a trace of bitterness. "To play the clod when one is all eyes and ears. Honorable it is, no doubt, yet to my old palate it savors too much of the actor strutting on the circular stage. But times change, and if, to live, we must ape the foreigners, why, we must borrow their ways till such time--the gods grant it be soon!--when we can throw them on the dust heap. And what am I to set my debased ignorance against my Princes and my Emperor!" He paused a moment and sighed. "Ishida is well esteemed," he continued presently. "He has dwelt in America and learned its tongue--a necessity, it seems, in these topsy-turvy times. Yet, as for marriage, waiting still must be. These are evil days for us, my child. From whence would come the gifts which must be sent before the bride, to the husband's house? Your mother"--he paused and bowed deeply toward the golden _butsu-dan_ in its alcove--"may she rest on the lotos-terrace of _Amida_!--came to my poor house with a train of coolies bearing lacquer chests: silken _f'ton_, _kimono_ as soft and filmy as mist, gowns of cloth and of cotton, cushions of gold and silver patternings, jeweled girdles, velvet sandals and all lovely garniture. Shall her daughter be sent to a husband with a chest of rags? No, no!" She leaned her dark head against his blue-clad shoulder and drew the scroll from his trembling fingers. "I wind your words about my heart," she said. "Waiting is best. Perhaps the evil times will withdraw. I have prayed to the Christian God concerning it. But your eyes are augustly wearied. Let me read to you a while."