finding refuge in a temple. More than two years this dreadful time lasted; always hiding, always hunted; for though Father was a prisoner and his cause lost, conquest was not complete until the enemy had extinguished for ever the family and name.
“At last,” Sister went on, “Mother came to the farmhouse where I was. She looked so thin, so brown, and so wild that I didn’t know her, and cried out. That night Minoto brought Brother. He told us that the priest, in order to save the child’s life, had given him up, and for several months he had been a prisoner with Father. Both had been very near the honourable death, but a message that the war was ended and all political prisoners were pardoned had saved them. Brother seemed to have almost forgotten me and would not talk much, but I heard him tell Mother that, one day, when soldiers were seen coming up the mountain, the priest had put him in a book chest and, covering him with rolls of sacred writings, had left the cover off and seated himself beside it as if arranging papers. Brother said that he heard rough footsteps and falling furniture, and when all was quiet and he was lifted out, he saw that spears had been thrust through the closed chests standing in the row with the one where he was hidden.
The next day Mother had gathered her family together and Yoshita found a place where they could live. Then Father came, and in a modest way life began all over again.
“So you see, Hanano,” said Sister, “your grandmother’s life has not always been full of peace.”
“It was a wonderful life,” said Hanano in a tone of awe, “wonderful—and terrible. But Honourable Grandmother did things! Oh, she did things!”
I looked at the lithe young body, held so straight, at the uplifted head and the tightly clasped hands. She was very like Mother. One generation removed from the
